The Heart of the Dead
by Ethereal Bliss
Summary: It was once said that in death, an individual has their entire life played before their eyes, their memories being revisited one at a time. They may still retain a portion of their once lost life during death. In such an unforgiving world of the living dead, how will this play out? It's a kill or be killed world. Rules don't apply anymore. All OC.
1. Chapter 1: Have a Little Faith

**Disclaimer: I ****do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes:**** Well, this was originally intended to be a duo project between HyRool and me but our ideas kind of diverged apart from one another... and here we are. While he writes Seven Days, I will write this. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.**

**Much love,**

**~SAYONARA~**

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"Joanne, do you have any more water on you? My canteen's out."

"Sorry Faith. I'm bone dry over here as well."

Faith sighed as she slung her canteen back onto her shoulder. Retightening her fingerless gloves, Faith nodded glumly, walking along.

It all started with an innocent vacation with a several friends up towards San Francisco. It was planned for a long time. Sam had planned the trip from the beginning, being one of the older members in the group of friends. When the trip started, the group didn't have a care in the world. The trip was meant to be a reunion for most of her close friends, who hadn't seen each other in several years, and a time when everyone could play catch up with one another.

_It was MEANT to be..._

It has been weeks, _months has it?, _since the world Faith lived had turned into a living nightmare. The dead rose from the streets, tearing apart the living. Faith was in San Francisco with her friends when Hell struck Earth. For the first couple days, the group held on, sticking together as one. But the apocalypse started to take its toll on everyone, some worse than others.

Kenny was the first to go. Not go as in to opt out. He didn't kill himself. Instead, he lost himself in this world. All the humanity that was once inside of him disappeared along with the normalness of the rest of the world. It was as if this world was meant for him. Kenny left the group soon after, telling everyone that clinging onto morals and humanity would only bring the inevitable:

Death.

They never saw Kenny after that. He didn't take anything but his iron pipe with him. Soon, the group started to fall apart. Panic spread like wildfire, consuming the minds of the unready.

That was when Sam suggested getting out of San Francisco. To seek refuge somewhere else. The group didn't know what to do at first. Simply trying to survive in the city was a fight everyday but to try and escape? That was surely suicide. Sam and Paul butted heads. Paul insisted that there was nothing for them outside of the city and that the safest bet was to stay put and let the government make its run across the country. Sam said that it was never going to happen. People had to take sides and eventually the group split. Half followed Sam out of San Francisco whereas the others stayed behind with Paul.

Even though she thought it was crazy, Faith still found herself following Sam out of the city anyway. She still had no idea how they had managed it but they escaped from the clutches of the urban landscape and fell back into suburbia. From then on, Faith and the group thought that things would now finally turn for the better. She wanted to agree.

But that simply wasn't so. Not in this world.

While camping out for the night, the group was attacked by a wandering horde. It was nothing like Faith had ever seen before. In the cities, the dead were scattered, shuffling around by themselves. But out here, they seemed to have a horde instinct, all attacking relentlessly until all sustenance was devoured. Their group wasn't an exception. Faith had barely made it out alive from the attack. She miraculously found Joanne in the pitch of night and the two made a run for it. Faith had no idea whether her group survived the attack or not. She would never know. It made Faith wonder whether she made the right choice of leaving the city after all.

"Playing with that thing again?" Joanne asked, peering over at Faith.

"Huh?" Faith said. She looked down at her hands and saw that she was unwittingly playing around with a small, dirty yellow walkie-talkie. The LCD screen was smashed and antennae had snapped in half. It was amazing the clip-on hadn't been broken yet. Wiping the grimy screen, Faith let out a small sigh.

"I guess it's becoming a habit to you." Joanne said.

"Ya think?" Faith asked, clipping back onto her pocket.

Joanne nodded as she kicked an aluminum can into a dirt ditch. "Ever since Paul gave you that thing before we left, you couldn't keep your hands off of it."

"What do you mean?" Faith asked.

Joanne raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if you noticed but whenever we were on the move or about do something dangerous, you'd keep fumbling around with that walkie-talkie."

"Oh." Faith said, looking back down at the dirty thing.

"Why still even keep it?" Joanne asked. "It's completely useless now ever since you fell on top of it as we were escaping that night… Not that I blame you or anything…"

Faith shrugged. "I dunno… It's kinda like a good luck charm at this point… and it's a memento…"

"Of what?" Joanne asked, surprised. "Paul?"

Faith shook her head. "It's a memento of our life. Our old life… The one before all… this."

Joanne stopped walking and sighed. That usually meant something was on her mind. Faith stopped too. She prepared herself to listen to Joanne's lecture.

"Look, I'm not trying to tell you how to live. I respect your choices and what you do, but sometimes, it's better to forget…"

Faith remained silent.

"This world, I'm sorry to say, isn't going to get any better. Things aren't going to change. If we only continue to reminisce about our past, we will never be able to move forward. As I said, I'm not trying to tell you how to live. All I want you to do is consider what I said."

Faith let out a small laugh, a first in a long time. "You sound like a refined Kenny."

Joanne rolled her eyes. "Oh please... At first he said something different… What was it?... Have a little… Ah, I forget… Anyway I- what was that?!"

The two stopped in their tracks. Faith's eyes darted around. That's when she took her surroundings in. Everything had been too quiet. Too serene. And the sudden noise had broken that silence. It sounded like padded feet going over broken glass. And it sounded close. Faith realized that she hadn't seen the dead ever since she and Joanne walked into the small town. Something was up.

That was when the smell had hit her nose. Something was burning… or was already burnt. There were no smoke trails in the sky. Faith looked on and saw that whatever was burning must have been beyond the corner of the abandoned department stores. She then heard several groans and the shuffling of feet. Her breathing quickening, Faith glanced back at Joanne. Joanne had taken out her handgun and gripped it tightly. Faith could see the white of Joanne's knuckles beneath the stretched skin.

Faith motioned with her hand to Joanne, telling her to put away her firearm.

"Why?" Joanne asked. "It's better to take these things out from a distance. Besides, we have no close range weapons."

Faith reached into her back pocket and pulled out a sheathed shiv. The grip was covered by sports tape. At the end of the grip was a ring shaped hole. Unclipping the sheath, Faith pulled out the small but sharp knife. On the blade, one could faintly see the initials L.S

"You have his knife?!" Joanne whispered furiously. "How?"

"That's besides the point. Noise attracts more of them Jo." Faith said, flipping the blade down and holding the knife upside down. "Of all people, you should've figured that out by now. We have no idea how many of them are beyond that corner."

"But still…" Joanne said.

Faith was about to step forward when she felt her foot hit something. Looking down, Faith saw a half-rusted utility screwdriver. The hardened plastic grip was intact. Picking it up, she saw that, although the screwdriver was bit rusted, the tip was still sharp.

Faith tossed the screwdriver to Joanne.

"Use that." Faith said. "It'll be better than attracting more of them."

Joanne sighed and nodded her head.

Taking a deep breath, Faith peered over the corner. It was quite a sight.

There was a military-class helicopter, with the platform machine gun still intact, that had crashed onto the middle of the street. The glass in the cockpit was smashed and stained with dried blood. There were several roamers on the street, idly walking about. What remained of the helicopter crew however was not certain. There scraps of clothes and bits of flesh scattered along the black pavement with other articles of military ware like helmets and such.

_The dead must have devoured most of the crew already…_

Faith looked towards the concrete sidewalk and saw a trail of bloody footprints trailing of into what appeared to be an empty mall. Faith glanced back at Joanne who looked at the scene anxiously.

"Should we deal with them?" Joanne asked, gripping her screwdriver.

Looking back at the crash site, there were about three roamers in their immediate area. One was sitting down, leaning against the wall, apparently asleep. One had its back to them, standing idly. And the last one stared blankly into empty space, unaware of the two humans in front of them.

"Let's take 'em." Faith said, semi-smirking.

Joanne gave her screwdriver a little spin. "Let's do it. I've been getting a little rusty anyway."

"Was that meant to be a pun?" Faith asked, looking at Joanne and at screwdriver.

Joanne shrugged. "Interpret however you want, we need to sharpen up anyway."

Faith gripped her knife. "Now that was intentional… Let's do this."

The two approached the roamer that stared on blankly. It still didn't notice them in its line of sight. Crouching, Faith positioned her self to the left of roamer. Joanne was behind it. Then, as fast as she could, Faith kicked the roamer in the knee joint from the side. The decomposing joint and sinews barely resisted the blow and gave way almost instantly along with an equally grotesque sound. It groaned as Joanne leapt and jammed her screwdriver into the back of the roamer's decaying skull. There was satisfying sound as the metal spike found its way into the roamer's dead brain. Standing back up, Joanne smoothly pulled the bloodstained screwdriver out from the cleanly made hole in the roamer's skull.

"One down, two to go."

They closed in on the roamer that had its back turned towards them. Joanne signaled to Faith that she would take out the one sitting down. Faith nodded as gripped her knife blade forward again. Aiming her blade, Faith thrust the shiv into the back of the roamer's head, beneath the thick skull and slightly above the spine.

However, the roamer didn't fall. It quickly turned around, taking the knife with it, its mouth gaping at its newly found prey. Faith felt the blood being drained from her face but she kept her composure. She swiftly grabbed the roamer's neck, disabling it from biting her, and kicked its leg out. The leg bent the opposite way as Faith pushed all of her weight onto the roamer, making it lose its balance. She fell with it. When they hit the ground, specks of blood splattered across Faith's face. Looking up, she saw the knife's blade protruding from the roamer's forehead. Turning the roamer over, Faith reached for her knife and after much effort, she pulled the blade out from the remains of the decayed brain.

Faith looked and saw Joanne. She had her handgun in one hand and her screwdriver in the other. Her face looked very anxious.

"What?" Faith asked, wiping her blade on the roamer's tattered shirt. "Is something wrong?"

Joanne shook her head. "I-I was just worried that you might-"

"Jo, come on." Faith said. "I appreciate that you worry for me but I can perfectly handle myself."

Joanne sighed. "I know, I know… that's exactly what Peter said…"

Faith's face fell. She felt a lump in her throat. Refusing to let the image take form in her mind, she cleared her throat. "Right now isn't the best time to relive old memories… you said it yourself… Now come on, we have some scavenging to do."

There was a store to their left. Faith signaled to Joanne to follow her lead.

Joanne nodded as she holstered her pistol back. She followed Faith as she made her way through the shattered glass door of an abandoned convenience store. The two made every effort to make the least amount of noise as possible, their boots walking over broken glass. The store was quite big on the inside. Because of its size, the store was quite dark inside.

"Watch my back for me real quick." Joanne told Faith as she took off her bag and reached inside for a flashlight.

Faith nodded as she faced the entrance and large glass window of the convenience store. Knife in hand, she braced herself for anything. From the corner of her eye, Faith saw Joanne's flashlight flicker a several times before illuminating whatever it was pointed at. The store was quiet for a while.

"O-oh my God…" Faith heard Joanne mutter, breaking the silence.

Sensing the strain in her voice, Faith asked her a question without turning around.

"What is it Jo?" Faith asked, anxious.

"Faith, you gotta look at this." Joanne said.

Faith pulled her eyes away from the entrance of the store and went to where Joanne stood. Joanne simply pointed at where she aimed her flashlight. Following the angle of the finger, Faith finally saw what Joanne was pointing at.

The aisles were literally flooded with cans of food which were untouched by the clutches of thieves and the apocalypse itself. Medical supplies and other miscellaneous items also docked the display shelves.

Faith couldn't believe her eyes. She was at a loss of words. She didn't know whether to cry for joy or laugh.

"Have a little faith…"

"Huh?"

Joanne looked at her, smiling for the first time in a long time.

"That's what Kenny use to say… Have a little faith."

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**(A/N): Well, this is the end of chapter 1! Hopefully, you all enjoyed it! Stay tuned for more!**

**Until next time,**

**~SAYONARA~**


	2. Chapter 2: Survive

**Disclaimer: I ****do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes:**** If you have any OC suggestions or OCs you would like to be in this FanFiction, please PM me and I'll see what I can do! **

**Anyway, here's chapter two! Hopefully, you enjoy it!**

**Much love,**

**~SAYONARA~**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Alright, that is about everything I can fit in my bag."

Faith looked up at Joanne as she zipped her bag close with much effort. Faith could see all the bulges and ridges of the cans along the side of Joanne's bag. Faith's bag wasn't light on load either. She carried most of the first-aid materials and several bottles of water. They were low on supplies earlier but the convenience store was a treasure trove of sustenance. It was like a miracle sent from the divines.

It had been their first stroke of good luck in a long time.

Lifting the bag, Faith slung it over her shoulders, grunting in the process.

"You think that this will be enough?" Faith asked Joanne.

Joanne shook her head. "It is never enough… But it will keep us going for a while."

"I guess." Faith said, following Joanne and her flashlight.

The two made their way back towards the entrance, trying to avoid the glass strewn across the floor as much as possible. That's when they also noticed the damp floor. A dark, black liquid was splattered across the wooden floor. They both looked at the shattered glass of side door which was now covered with bits of flesh and specks of blood

"Was this all here when we came in?" Faith asked, feeling her heart sink.

"I-I don't know…" Joanne said, her voice slightly quivering.

"Then that might mean that whatever came in…" "Faith started to say.

"Must still be inside… with us." Joanne concluded.

Faith felt like her heart had dropped to her knees. She had no idea how many roamers had managed their way into the store. And what scared her more was the fact that both she and Joanne had not noticed anything in the first place. They would usually be able to hit a pin drop in the room but this was a first.

The bags that they were carrying were actually quite big at the moment, nearly at the verge of exploding open. Not to mention that they were actually incredibly heavy as well. Trying to fit through those entrances without slipping on floor would be a problem.

"Do you think we can open these doors?" Faith asked.

Joanne aimed her flashlight at the side door. Faith saw that the door, except for the glass entryway, was all boarded up. They could try unscrewing all the nails but that would take far too long. Besides, the task would be far too tedious to do in the dark with a rusty screwdriver… with whatever might have gotten inside before.

"I don't think we can open the door…" Joanne began to say.

"Well no crap."

"You asked."

"Touché."

Faith thought for a moment. They could toss their bags through entrance but considering the bags' weight, most of the things inside of them would end up being damaged. Plus, Faith had not noticed before but there were glass pieces outside as well. She didn't want glass shards sticking into her bag and later jamming into her side. And due to the bags' weight, Faith didn't know whether she would be able to carry it again on her back. Her shoulders were screaming at her too. If they tried to set it down, the weight of the bag might drive their arms onto the glass spikes. Faith didn't want to picture that image in her mind.

"So…" Joanne said, trying to act as nonchalant as she could. "We have to try to fit through that tiny glass hole."

"Seems like it."

"Never in my lifetime did I ever have a problem on trying to fit through a glass door and now, my life depends on it. Great."

Faith wanted to laugh but it was true. This was actually posing as a problem. If they took a wrong step, they would probably get punctured by the glass. They wouldn't die immediately either. The glass would have impaled them and disemboweled them at that point. Their innards would be strewn across the concrete and wooden floors, their blood splattered everywhere. In that scenario they'd probably scream their lungs out, literally. If that happened, they would attract all the dead that were nearby. And then-

_No. I've got to stop thinking like that… _

Clearing her head, Faith took a deep breath. Looking at the entryway, she made her decision.

"I'll go first." Faith said as she stepped closer to glass hole. "Looks easy enough… I think…"

"No, no." Joanne insisted. "I'll go first."

"I appreciate the offer Joanne, but you look like you are going to trip over yourself before you can even get near the door. I'll go first… just to make sure that it is passable."

"You sure?"

"When am I not?" Faith lied.

To be honest, she was terrified of the alternative. She was terrified of what would become of her if she were to slip. But there was no time to worry about whatever alternative might occur. The two needed to get out. With whatever might be lurking inside the building, their lives depended on it.

Taking a deep breath, Faith took a step towards the glass entrance. She felt the glass bits crack beneath the sole of her boot. She also saw the ripples her foot had made in the pool of blood. The floor felt slippery to the touch.

Faith remembered one time when she was in a restaurant, she slipped on the tiled floors pretty badly. Of course, there was the usual yellow picket sign with the huge black **CAUTION **plastered all over it with the poor sap slipping on the ground drawn in the middle of the sign. Faith forgot why she was running around in slippery areas in the first place. But in the end, she twisted her ankle pretty badly and was on crutches for a while.

That was a long time ago. This was now.

The memory did take the edge of the situation slightly. Faith half-heartedly chuckled to herself as she slowly made herself take another step. She crouched down and poked her head through the glass window. The outside was dimly lit. The sun must have gone behind the roofs of the overhead buildings. Faith briefly looked around the frame of the entryway to see if there were any areas she could grab to pull herself through.

She found a small patch of the frame that had no glass resting in it. She grabbed the portion of the frame with her left hand and began to pull herself forward slowly. Lifting her right leg, she carefully dodged through the glass shards and placed her leg outside, ever so slightly out reach beyond the sharp tips of glass.

Faith let out a nervous breath, her arm slightly trembling. She couldn't lose grip now. One leg was free, resting on the outside and so was the other half of the body. However, the other half lied behind the clutches of the glass spikes, merely inches away from being freed.

Mustering her strength, Faith gave one last push forward. Using the space on the frame as a foundation, Faith pushed herself through the frame. Her backpack narrowly missed the top of the frame as she fell forward. As she did however, she miscalculated her landing and her right cheek came in contact with the end of a rather outstanding piece of glass.

Faith let out a sharp yelp as she made it outside. She felt the warm blood on her face slowly drip out of the cut. The cut itself wasn't deep. Faith could tell by the amount of blood that poured out. But the cut was rather long. It ran from the middle of her right cheek to the end of her earlobe.

_Maybe about… Four inches long? _

"Faith?! Are you alright?!" A concerned voice from inside the building cried out.

"Y-yeah…" Faith managed to say, her blood flowing over her lips. "Just a minor accident… nothing serious… I hope."

Faith saw Joanne's face peer out from the entrance. She looked rather concerned.

"We should suture that soon…" Joanne said. "And probably disinfect it too."

"I know, I know." Faith muttered as she opened her vest pocket and took out a small, slightly dirty cloth towel. She used to wipe the blood off her face. The cut stung as she ran the cloth down the right side of her face. She looked back at Joanne.

"You better hurry up Jo." Faith said, looking down both sides of the alleyway. "Roamers might catch the scent of blood in the area."

"Yeah… yeah…" Joanne said as she slowly crept towards the entrance.

"It'll be a piece of cake…" Faith heard Joanne mutter to herself.

Joanne extended her right leg as she stretched it out from the entrance. She firmly planted her right foot onto the cracking concrete below.

"Almost there." Joanne said.

Faith looked up at her to smile but as she did, Faith felt as if someone had driven a stake through her heart.

Behind Joanne, Faith saw a dark, lumbering figure. And it was going towards her. Faith saw the figure reach a grimy hand towards Joanne, the finger bones protruding out from beneath the skin of the fingertips. They were bloody.

"JOANNE! BEHIND YOU!" Faith yelled instinctively.

Joanne quickly turned around and saw the roamer reach for her. Too shocked to scream, Joanne reeled her right arm backwards, hitting the roamer's temple with her fist. The roamer looked as if it had lost its balance as it stumbled backwards.

Faith raced forward as she took Joanne's left arm. She slowly helped her out of the glass entrance.

Suddenly, Joanne was jerked back inside. Faith felt her arms scraping against the glass shards and the metal frame. She also felt something warm ooze over her right hand and arm. It smelled metallic.

That was when Joanne screamed in pain.

And Faith found out why.

When Joanne was pulled back into the room, she fell above a blade of glass. It had nestled its way into her left side. Faith couldn't tell exactly where it was or how deep it was, one thing was for certain. Joanne was bleeding out.

"I-Its got my leg! My leg!" Joanne screamed, tears running down her face.

Faith wrapped her arms around Joanne's torso as she pulled her as hard as she could. It was no use. The roamer inside had an iron grip on her leg.

Faith looked desperately at her surroundings, looking for something to help her. She looked all around. There was nothing.

_No… NO! THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING! THERE HAS TO BE!_

That was when Faith looked at the ground. There was a metallic object covered in blood lying in wait on the ground.

It was Joanne's handgun.

_It must have been cut loose when Joanne fell on the glass…_

Faith quickly reached for the gun and picked it up with her left hand. It felt rather heavy for its size. Shifting her position slightly, Faith could see the roamer behind Joanne. It was gnawing on her boot.

With a shaky aim, Faith pointed the gun at the roamer's head and pulled the trigger.

Faith felt as if her eardrums were blown out. The tightly encased alleyway amplified the sound greatly. The ringing still prevalent in her ear, Faith dropped the gun as she pulled Joanne out. Joanne came through the glass hole with far less resistance now.

Faith leaned Joanne against the brick wall, trying to assess the situation.

Joanne's face had turned alarmingly pale. She must have bled out a lot. Faith looked back at the glass frame and saw the rather large pool of blood resting below where Joanne should have been moments earlier. Blood was splattered all over the area as well.

Joanne suddenly coughed, wheezing almost. "I-it… it didn't… b-bite me… Did it?"

Faith quickly went to Joanne's foot and observed it with much scrutiny. Teeth marks were everywhere on the boot but no bite had gone through the tough leather.

_Thank God…_

"No…" Faith said. "It didn't bite you Jo…"

"Th-thank… God…" She said, in almost a whisper. She coughed again.

Faith then turned her attention toward Joanne's wound.

It was quite severe.

The glass had punctured through her leather jacket and into her left side. Faith took the Joanne's jacket off as she took a closer look at the wound. The blood had stained nearly every area on the left side of Joanne's white shirt. The cut was beneath Joanne's breast, almost surgical. It was above where her gut would have been and must have into the gap of her rib cage. Faith didn't know whether the glass had actually impaled Joanne's lung but she wasn't going to sit down and wait until she did.

Faith also noticed that Joanne's backpack was gone. The strap must have gotten caught on a similar glass shard that cut Joanne and cut loose the backpack strap, leaving it back in the convenience store. Faith thought about going back to retrieve the bag, considering that most of the food was inside that very bag. She walked to the window and peered inside. Sure enough, the bag rested below the frame, one back strap missing. There was no way Faith could reach for it without risking impalement or a puncture wound on her arm.

"Ah, damn it." She scowled.

With that said, Faith looked down the alleyway. To her horror, roamers started to stumble down into the alley, fully aware of the scent of blood high in the air and the gunshot from earlier.

Joanne must have noticed too. Faith saw her breathing rate increase as she turned away from the incoming horde and stared at Faith, her eyes filled with terror.

"We… we have to get out of here…" Joanne said, her voice barely a whisper.

"You didn't need to tell me that." Faith said, walking over to Joanne, her eyes still glued to the roamers as they stumbled closer. "C'mon, grab by shoulder."

Joanne shakily leaned on Faith as the two walked down the alleyway at a dangerously slow pace. Faith knew that the roamers were gaining ground on them. She could hear their moans and their feet shuffle on top of the concrete flooring. Faith bit her lip and she pressed on, the weight of the backpack and Joanne straining her shoulders and back. They screamed in protest but Faith knew that if she stopped where she stood, she would meet an inevitable death the teeth of the dead.

As they reached towards the end of the alleyway, even more dead started to walk down towards them. They were trapped on both sides. There was no way out.

Faith desperately looked around one more time, looking for an exit.

On her right side, there was a small turn to make. She quickly turned the corner.

It was a dead end.

Faith ran down the small alley looking for something. FOR SOMETHING to escape from his. There weren't any doors or any windows to scale. They were at least ten feet up beyond their reach. There was nothing except for a small iron gate that could be locked if one had a lock. Other than that, there was nothing…

"Over there…" Joanne said weakly, her shaky finger pointing towards the wall in front of them.

"What is it?" Faith asked.

She followed Joanne's finger and saw what she was talking about.

It was one of those emergency fire escapes that city apartments had. The lower portion of the metal was rusted, screwed and bent at an awkward angle, prohibiting anyone passage through them. However, if someone could get their timing right, they could wall jump off an adjacent brick wall and grab onto one of the metal railings above. Then they could pull themselves up and climb up towards the roof, away from the roamers.

Faith, realizing this, raced towards the fire escape, scaling the metal, making sure she would be able to make the jump. In a couple of seconds, she assessed that she could.

But that's when it hit her.

Faith could make the jump. She wasn't injured any where badly enough to not be able to. She would be able to make the jump in a single bound, bag included.

But Joanne was.

Joanne realized this also. That was when she said the unthinkable.

"Leave me."

Faith felt as if she heard her wrong.

"What?!"

Joanne turned to her, her face sickeningly pale. "You have to leave me Faith."

Faith felt as if she was falling into a endless void.

"No… NO!" Faith said adamantly. "I won't leave you behind! Not after all we have been through!"

"That's not your decision to make…"

"Wait, wha-?!"

Joanne suddenly broke away from Faith and raced back down the alleyway. Shocked, Faith ran after her. Surprisingly, Joanne was quite was fast despite her physical state. As Faith finally caught up to her, she grabbed Joanne.

"What the hell do you think you are doing Jo?!" Faith yelled at her, a lump rising in her throat.

Joanne looked at her sadly. She opened her mouth.

"Saving your life."

Joanne then pushed Faith off of her with her remaining strength. Faith, still in shock, fell backwards and landed on her bottom. She looked up and saw that Joanne had managed to close the iron gate and attach a newly opened lock onto the gate, closing it tightly. Faith ran towards the gate, no, towards Joanne.

"Why?!" She screamed at her friend, her voice cracking. "Why Joanne?!"

Joanne turned around, tears streaming down her face. She had a weak smile on her sad face.

"Faith…" She said, her voice down to barely a whisper. "We both know… I can't go with you…"

"But!-"

"I'll only slow you down… and eventually, you might get killed… I won't be able to live with that…" She said weakly.

"Then what about me?!" Faith said. "I won't be able to live with your blood on my hands!"

Joanne fell silent. The only sounds in the air were the sounds of shuffling feet and the occasional moan of a roamer.

"Yes… Yes you will…" Joanne said, giving one last smile to Faith. "You will survive… You have to…"

Faith grabbed onto the iron bars of the gate, the skin of her gloves stretching from the strain. Tears rolled down her face.

Joanne walked towards her and held out a shaky hand. Faith looked up at it. In Joanne's hand was her gun, blood covered and all.

"Here…" Joanne said weakly, still smiling. "You'll need this more than me… after I'm gone…"

Shakily, Faith took the gun. Once again, it felt heavy in her hand, heavier than the last time she held it. But it didn't feel cold. It felt… warm… As if some part of Joanne had come and rested inside the metal shell of the object. Faith looked up back at Joanne, she too was crying silently.

Joanne brought her face close to Faith's and whispered into her ear.

"I'll miss you Faith…"

She then turned around and began to walk down the alleyway. Faith could see the shadows of incoming roamers beyond the brick corners. Every step that Joanne took echoed throughout the alley. Faith, for some reason, called out her name.

Joanne's name echoed along with footsteps and soon subsided. Joanne stopped in her tracks, not turning her head.

"What is it?" Joanne said softly.

Faith quickly held out her hand.

"H-here…" Faith said, choking back more tears. "I want you to have this…"

Joanne turned around and saw what Faith held in her hands.

It was a dirty yellow object. Its black antennae was broken in half and its monitor was shattered. Faith held it with a shaky grip.

It was the walkie-talkie.

"Faith…" Joanne said.

"Take it…" Faith sniffed. "You'll need it more than I do…"

Joanne firmly took the walkie-talkie from her hand and held it tightly. She looked at Faith, a small smile across her face.

"It's kept me safe so far…" Faith said. "Maybe it'll do the same for you…"

Joanne nodded her head, still holding tightly to the walkie-talkie.

"I know it will… and Faith…"

Faith looked at her one last time.

"I-I'll… see you later…" Joanne said weakly.

Faith wiped her eyes as she forced herself to put on a slight smile. "Yo-you too…"

And with that Joanne turned around and continued her long walk back down the alley. Faith did the same. The gun still contained the warmth Joanne had left it with. Pocketing it, Faith ran down the alley towards the metal fire escape. Pumping with leftover adrenaline from earlier, Faith leapt onto the brick wall and used a pivot foot to jump off the bricks and reach for the metal railing.

Her fingers clasped around the cold metal and she pulled herself up with all her strength. There was no time to lose. Joanne had bought her extra time to escape and she would make sure to make those precious minutes count. Faith looked back down the alley and saw that Joanne had disappeared from view and only a sea of roamers could be seen.

Faith felt as if someone cut a piece of her very heart away, shredding it to pieces but upon looking closely, Faith could see that the roamers weren't huddled around each other as they usually do when they devour something.

_That means Joanne may have…_

Faith felt as if her spirits were lifted, even so slightly.

She began her ascension up the metal stairs. Her footsteps clanging against the metal boards as she made her way up. She gripped the side railings tightly. She remembered what Joanne said to her earlier.

"_Have a little faith…"_

"I know Joanne…" She muttered to herself unwittingly. "I know."

She stopped as she stared back at the alley one last time.

_Survive Joanne… You have to…_

SURVIVE.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**(A/N): OH BOY! DOES THIS FEEL RUSHED OR WHAT?! ANYWAY, THANKS FOR READING! If you would like your OC to take part or would like to suggest an OC, please PM me and I'll make sure to consider your request. Anyway, thanks again!**

**Oh and P.S.: To ****시언이****, I hope you enjoyed this!**

**Until next time, **

**~SAYONARA~**


	3. Chapter 3: Joanne

**Disclaimer: I ****do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes:**** If you have any OC suggestions or OCs you would like to be in this FanFiction, please PM me and I'll see what I can do! Anyway, last time when we left off, tragedy struck (this is the world of the living dead, obviously) and Faith is now all alone… Or is she? Hope you enjoy reading.**

**MUCH LOVE, **

**~SAYONARA~**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Faith kicked the roof's overhead door open as she peered down the empty stairwell. It was abandoned for one thing but it was also pitch black inside. With the door open, the light from outside only gave enough light to move down at least two flights before receding away from the darkness. From that point on, Faith would be walking blind. Faith also noticed that the handrails broke off at about the second flight downward. If she made it that far, she would be literally walking on the rails.

The flashlight that she had used earlier was back in the convenience store, several hundred feet down from where she stood. There was no way she would be able to go back. The alley was crowded first off…

And Faith didn't want to go back and re-witness the scene she had just barely managed to escape. And if Joanne happened to be there…

_No… Stop if Faith… Stop thinking like that._

Faith knew it was unrealistic, to wish that Joanne may survive, but it gave her a form of comfort. Joanne had been in other terrifying scrapes with death before all this started and managed to survive and bounce back from each incident. Faith hoped that this was true and still applied right now.

And if Joanne were to have any chance of surviving at all, Faith would need to be by her side. Faith thought for a moment. The alley behind her was a sort of a t-bone intersection. It led to two opposite pathways that, in the end, would all be connected by a main street. If Faith could manage to get off the building and circle back on the ground, she would be able to find Joanne.

Faith took a deep breath as she looked down the dark abyss that waited before her. She took a step into the stairway. As she set her foot down on the metal step, her footstep echoed throughout the stairway, long and loud. Faith would have continued to hear her echoing footstep if her heart wasn't pounding so hard.

Anyone, _Or anything in this matter, _would have heard that noise. If roamers were near the vicinity, they would be clambering up the stairs this very minute. Faith stood her ground, her ear attentive to every and all sounds that came her way. If roamers were indeed coming, she'd be ready for it. She waited.

1…

2…

3…

4…

…

…

…

60…

Faith listened, her ears paying acute attention to the stairway. There was nothing. If someone were to drop a pin several flights below, she might be able to hear. Still, there was nothing to be heard. The stairway was silent.

Gathering her courage, Faith began her long descent down the stairs, each footstep echoing throughout the metal plated walls. Her footsteps sounded like gunfire and the sound of her heart racing sounded like someone firing off a fully automatic weapon. Not to mention, with each step, the room got darker and darker.

Suddenly there was a loud screech. It sounded like as if the metal of the structure was screaming. Faith put her hand on the wall she stood next against, her heart pounding and cold sweat running down her back. He breathing quickened as well.

With an echoing thud, the entire stairway went black.

It took about five seconds for Faith to figure out what exactly was going on.

The screeching she heard earlier must have been the sound of rusted metal scraping against each other. In this instance, it must have been the iron door on the roof of the building that led to this stairway. And the loud thud must have been the door shutting close, leaving her in perpetual darkness.

The darkness was overpowering.

Faith held her hands in front of her face. She could see her hands. She even tried to wave it back forth but to no avail. The stairwell was so dark it was as if Faith was walking around with her eyes closed.

The darkness was one thing but the sheer utter silence of the stairwell was quite oppressive. If it weren't for her racing heart, Faith might have assumed she had gone blind and deaf.

Despite being robbed of her sense of vision, Faith knew that there was only way out of this.

And that was to go down.

She slowly started to walk down the stairs again. This time around, however, the sound of her footsteps was muffled by millions of thoughts swimming through her head.

Faith remembered that the railing would soon disappear and if she wasn't attentive enough, she would lose her balance and fall down the dark chasm.

_Maybe about… a five... six story drop?_

If she fell from that, she would probably look something similar to a watermelon that was beaten to pieces by wooden sticks. And this only applied to her head. She couldn't imagine what would happen to the rest of her body if she actually fell.

_Still… _She thought to herself. _Better than being devoured by roamers…_

Roamers.

The idea struck Faith sort of blindly, the term roamer. It was sort of a derogatory term that she adopted while running around in San Francisco. It was better than calling these things ghouls, which just sounded weird. She modeled the term after their behavior.

_They just… roam around… everywhere… Well, back in the cities at least…_

The term didn't do the creatures any justice out here in the suburbs however. They were a lot more… aggressive out here. Almost smart. Usually traveling in packs, the roamers would have something of a horde mindset, with usually a lead roamer leading the pack from place to place. Being attracted to sound, the roamers would all shamble towards the source in a huge horde, usually catching the unaware victims by surprise.

_That was happened several nights ago… with the group._

Faith tried not to think about it.

It was already enough that she was scared out of her mind walking down a stairwell with something like a blindfold shrouding her eyes but to reminisce about what happened several nights ago… She couldn't handle it.

She stopped in her tracks, trying to compose herself. If she kept on thinking this way, she could not keep a level head. It was already hard enough to survive alone, it wasn't time to think about even worse things to only bring her morale down. She needed to change her way of thinking.

_Positive… Positive… I have to be positive._

Then the thought struck her.

_What would Joanne do?_

Joanne, the usual clear minded thinker she usually was, never lost her cool. In the cities, when everyone was losing their minds, Joanne's resourcefulness saved the bigger group. She was similar to Sam when it came down to planning and was nearly on par with his tact and wit. If Joanne hadn't decided to follow Sam, Faith knew she wouldn't have tagged along in the first place.

But she had come along. And now, Joanne was gone.

Despite that, it gave Faith an unusual comfort.

_Joanne…_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**TEN YEARS AGO…**_

It was a bright sunny day, perfect for spending time outdoors and hanging out. And there was one girl in particular that decided to spend such a wonderful day having her eyes glued to a six-inch phone screen.

Enter Faith Kim, smart phone extraordinaire.

She actually wasn't a genius when it came to technology. She was called what she was because her eyes usually never left the screen of the seven inch piece of metal and plastic. And no matter where she went and what she did, it usually revolved around her smart phone.

It never became clear to her that she was actually addicted to that piece of plastic that she staked her life around.

That is… Until today.

Sent on an errand by her church group, Faith was partnered with some girl and told to go to the supermarket across the street and buy some supplies for some upcoming festival that she had not paid attention to.

And of course, she had to walk to the store.

She didn't have a car nor was she very eager to drive in the first place. She was underage too. But it didn't matter anymore to her than it did. If she drove, it would disturb her from using her phone. So while walking, she was using her phone.

But that day ended up being quite memorable in a way she did not expect at all.

She rapidly approached a crosswalk while her eyes were focused on her phone screen which displayed a bouncy ball making its way across a map full of spiky and tricky contraptions that would make her bouncy ball go POOF! She was incredibly focused, so focused that she didn't know that the crosswalk light had turned red the moment she stepped foot on the cracking blacktop.

Then, out of nowhere, a hand firmly gripped her shoulder as she was jerked off the black pavement, almost being lifted from her feet, and brought back onto the sidewalk curb. In that split moment, her smart phone was launched out of her hands. It seemed as if time froze as Faith saw her phone suspended in mid-air, only mere inches away from her fingertips. Then time restarted and thousands of pieces of plastic hailed themselves onto Faith's face. As the pieces hit her face, blaring rock music blasted itself into her eardrum, nearly deafening her. Her hair was thrown askew, a strong wind whipping her face.

Being back on the sidewalk, Faith spun around and faced the person that had pulled her back. Faith wasn't mad. She was furious. Her smart phone was now gone. She looked at the person who pulled her. It was the new girl that was partnered with her to go to the supermarket. She was about a head taller than Faith, her recently dyed hair resting several centimeters above her shoulders.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Faith asked in Korean, glaring at the girl.

The girl looked at her nonchalantly. She appeared unaware of Faith's rage. She smirked.

"Saving your life." She replied, adding a smile.

Faith scowled as she saw the crosswalk light turn green. Muttering to herself, she crossed the street, pacing herself to be ahead of the girl… attempted to be ahead of the girl.

The girl caught up with her quite quick, considering that she was taller than Faith and took longer strides.

Faith looked at the girl with disgust. "My phone is smashed and it's all your fault."

The girl looked confused. "Are you upset that your phone is broken?"

"Yes!" Faith said, exasperated. "I am mad! No, I'm furious!"

The girl stopped mid-step. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a phone that was a similar model to Faith's.

"Here," The girl said, handing her phone to Faith. "You can have mine instead."

Faith's eye twitched. _What the hell is wrong with this girl?_

Faith cautiously took the phone from the girl's hand. She pressed the power button on the left side of the phone. The menu displayed itself. The wallpaper was the girl and some boy smiling at the camera. The two looked happy.

As she stared into the phone screen, Faith began to hear people whispering.

"Hey… wasn't that girl saved by the other girl?"

"Yeah…It was crazy. There were several teens racing in their cars on the local streets. That girl would have turned into something of a human silly putty if it weren't for that other girl she was with."

"Despite that close call with death, that girl doesn't look thankful at all."

"I think it has something to do with the smart phone she lost back there."

"Sigh… The face of our generation today… such a shame."

"I'll say… The youngsters of today only treasure materialistic wealth… People could learn a thing or two from the other girl over there."

Faith felt her face redden and her face turn hot with shame. It was something of a first for her. Usually she wouldn't feel this way after being chewed out by strangers for being something of a total knob with her smart phone but today… It felt different. She felt… bad almost. That girl saved her life and how did Faith thank her?

By yelling at the girl's face for making her lose her phone.

Faith let out a low sigh, closing her eyes. Still feeling the phone in her hands, she knew she had to give it back to the girl. It was the right thing to do.

But as she did, she didn't know that the girl actually walked ahead of her towards the store. Faith ran after her to catch up with her. The girl caught wind of someone running and looked back to see Faith resting at the concrete stairs of the store, her hands resting on her knees, out of breath.

"Is there something wrong?" The girl asked, concerned.

"Yeah." Faith said, trying to catch her breath. "You can have your phone back."

Faith held the phone in front of her, waiting for her to take it back. The girl simply had an intrigued look on her face.

"But I thought you needed a new pho-"

Faith shook her head. "No." She stammered. "I-I don't think I'll need a smart phone… for a while now."

The confused look still stretched across her face. "Really now? The Pastor would always tell everyone how ballistic you were over your possessions… especially your phone."

Faith rolled her eyes. "Yeah, my dad has a tendency to stretch the truth a bit… But, yeah, he's right…"

"Then why-?"

"You know, stop making this harder on me and just take the phone back, please?" Faith said as kindly as she could.

The girl shrugged. "If you insist."

As Faith handed the phone back to the girl, she heard someone yelling across the store plaza.

"Hey! What do you know? The Grade-A Jerk is finally opening her eyes!... or could it be that she thinks her reputation is at risk and is just doing this for show?" The voice said. It belonged to a teenage boy.

"I don't know." Another male voice said. "Why don't we ask her?"

"Hey, miss!..." The voice cried out. "… No not you. The one next to the pretty one!"

Seeing the finger and voice being directed at her, Faith sighed behind gritted teeth as she shook her head. She turned and began to walk into the store. As she did, she realized that the girl wasn't following her.

Faith turned.

"Hey, c'mon let's go…" She began to say.

Only to realize that the girl wasn't at the door anymore. In fact, she was walking towards the two boys that were taunting Faith earlier. The boys were laughing hysterically until they saw the girl standing before them.

The boys' faces turned pale.

And after several words were exchanged, the boys walked away, wobbly legged.

The girl came back, playing with her hair. She noticed Faith by the doorway and smiled friendlily.

The two began to walk into the store together.

Faith had a dying question to ask. "What did you tell those boys?"

The girl slightly stuck out her lip, closing her eyes simultaneously. "I simply told them to shut it."

"Seriously, tell me."

"Seriously, that's it."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously." The girl said, nodding her head.

Faith thought for a moment. "But why?"

"Huh?" The girl said, confused.

"I mean…" Faith said. "Those guys weren't wrong… heck, they were pretty darn accurate if you ask me… Why did you go on and tell them to shut up? I treated you like dirt too. It would have been a form of justice if you simply listened to what they had said and agreed."

The girl smiled, simply shaking her head. "Paul was good at describing your personality."

"Huh?" Faith asked, now the one confused. "What do you mean?"

"Behind that harsh exterior," the girl said, "You are still person… And any person who knows what they did wrong and admits to it is okay in my book."

"Wait, so you aren't pissed at me?... For anything?!" Faith asked, confused as hell.

"Should I be?" The girl asked.

Faith was dumbfounded. Here was a girl that stood before. She saved her life and Faith treated her like crap for it. And when Faith was bombarded with insults from others, this girl stepped up and put a stop to it. Faith didn't even know who this girl was personally. She was just some new girl that moved into the church recently from Korea. That was all Faith knew.

"Well… Uh… I mean…" Faith stammered.

"Look." The girl said, resting a hand on Faith's shoulder. "Whatever happened before, it doesn't matter now. I don't care if you treated me like crap. All I care about is that you still had the heart to realize when enough was enough."

"Enough? What do you mean?"

The girl smirked. "THAT'S for YOU to find out."

Faith sighed, still feeling a tad bit guilty.

The girl let out a small laugh. "Stop beating yourself up over it… And c'mon. Everyone waiting for us back at church is going to throw a fit if we don't come back in time."

"Thank you…" Faith said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Huh? Did you say something."

"Thank you." Faith said again, louder this time. "A-and… I'm sorry."

"What for? Being human?"

Faith couldn't think of anything else to say.

The girl handed a plastic hand basket from the store to Faith. "Let's get moving Faith."

Faith eyes lit up. "I-I… I never caught your name…"

The girl smiled.

"It's Joanne."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**PRESENT TIME…**_

Faith felt something shift underneath her foot. It felt like folded paper about the size of a folded business card one would usually get at an auto insurance company. Slowly reaching down, Faith felt around her foot, looking for whatever she stepped on. Then, her hand scraped against something that felt like incredibly thin cardboard. It was folded in half, one end stuck into a little slit cut into the end of the other flap. It could be flipped open. Carefully using her gloved fingers, Faith opened the flap of paper and felt around inside. There were narrow sticks resting inside the inner flap, fall resting next to each other neatly. The small sticks also had ovular heads which were rough to touch.

They were so hard, if one were to rub the head across the rough surface, sparks would fly.

_Sparks would fly… Sparks…_

_MATCHES!_

Faith held onto the small container of matches tightly, upon her revelation. By touching the match heads, Faith estimated about ten matches inside the paper cache. She took one match out. Holding it well between her thumb and her index finger, Faith scraped it against the back of the match case.

A small yet intense flame illuminated the stairwell. Faith's eyes did not adjust the dark well. She was in the stairwell for a good ten minutes and she couldn't see a damn thing. Her eyes burned as the flame shone in the room. She was too busy due to the sudden pain in her eyes that she didn't notice the flame dangling dangerously close to her fingers, already having worked through the top of the match stick.

Feeling the burning heat, Faith dropped the match stick, almost yelping out in pain. The match went over the stair rails and soon the stairwell went dark again.

Remembering the location of the handrails, Faith peeked over them, gripping onto them for support. And far down below, Faith saw a very faint light glimmering in the darkness. It was something similar to watching a firefly from far away. Soon, the light vanished, leaving the already dark room even darker.

Faith sighed. That was the first match. There were about nine more left. She would have to use them sparingly. Seeing how far down the match went, Faith realized that she hadn't made much progress, walking along in the dark. She felt around her hands and pulled out another match. She struck at it and illuminated the area once more.

This time, she began to walk down slowly.

After making quite a bit of distance, Faith saw the match burning low once again. She threw it down over the rails.

Or where the rails should have been.

Being in such a hurry, Faith absentmindedly stumbled herself onto the stairs that no longer had the rails attached.

That's when it occurred to her. From the top of the staircase, she was able to see this portion of the stairs with the minimal amount of light that came from outside.

With that said, Faith realized that she had made little to no progress climbing down the stairs.

Feeling the case of matches in one hand and the face of the wall with the other, Faith groaned.

_This is going to a LONG trip down…_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**FIVE YEARS AGO…**_

"What's with the long face?"

Faith looked up, her face forlorn. It was Joanne. Faith sighed as Joanne sat next to her.

"It's nothing…" Faith muttered.

"When you say that Faith, it's usually something." Joanne said.

Faith let out a long sigh as she brought her hands to her face. Long black strands of her hair fell slightly over her face, covering it.

"It's Derek." Faith said, her voice evident with melancholy.

"What now?" Joanne asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did he dump your or something?"

Faith gazed at Joanne sadly.

"Oh… I-Uh… Damn, sorry about that…" Joanne stammered, slightly at a loss of words. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine…" Faith muttered. "I-I don't think it was going to work out for much more longer anyway…"

Joanne looked at her, confused. "Work out? You guys have been going at it for nearly three years! Why all of a sudden?"

Faith shook her head. "I wonder why too… But I think it is best not to think about him…"

Joanne shrugged. "Sure… Whatever you say…"

Joanne saw Faith take her cell phone out and turn the screen on. Peering at the screen, Joanne realized that the wallpaper was still of Faith and Derek, a happy moment caught on camera. Joanne didn't know what Faith's intention was when she took out the phone but Faith stared at the menu screen for the longest time with saying a word.

Joanne then burst out laughing. Faith looked at her, thinking she was going crazy.

"Wh-what is it?" Faith asked, worried.

Joanne stopped laughing, wiping her eyes. "It's you."

"Huh?"

"I find it kinda funny that you talk all about how you aren't going to think about Derek and I just see you staring into your phone screen's wallpaper of him. And you aren't saying a word either."

Faith's face turned beet red. She quickly pocketed her phone.

"You say that you don't want to think about him huh?" Joanne said. "And yet he simply can't just leave your head, can he?"

Faith didn't say a word.

"You don't have to feel ashamed about it Faith." Joanne said. "It's a part of living and having relationships. You've got to know when to let go."

"How the heck would you know?" Faith asked, sort of annoyed and sort of curious at the same time. "You haven't been with a guy for the past five years!"

Joanne looked at her, a wide smirk stretched across her face. "Who says five?"

"Wait, so are you in one right now?"

Joanne shook her head.

"… So are you saying that you haven't been in a relationship with anyone even longer than five years?"

Joanne let out a small laugh. "Never."

Faith bolted up, a box falling out of her lap and landing on the sidewalk but she didn't care about it for that moment. She stared at Joanne, confused as hell.

"Don't lie to me Joanne…" Faith said.

Joanne shook her head. "I'm not lying Faith, I'm serious."

"B-but… but…" Faith stammered. "You know so much about all this! Relationships… hell, everything! How the hell you are not in a relationship right now surprises me! I'd expect all the guys to fall head over heels for you!"

Joanne laughed. "It's not like that Faith."

Faith rolled her eyes, sighing. "Sure. Of course it isn't." She said sarcastically.

Faith then thought for a moment. She recalled back into her memory. Something from long ages past.

"Wait a minute." Faith said.

"What?"

"You said you were never in a relationship before, right?"

Joanne nodded her head.

"Then who was that guy in your wallpaper all those years ago?" Faith asked.

Joanne laughed again. "Oh him? That's my brother."

"WHAT?!" Faith could not believe her. "You've been living in California for five years with us, yet you never told us?!"

"You never asked. Besides, he's almost ten years older than I am. He's always on business trips and such, working."

"He sure as hell doesn't look his age…" Faith muttered. "I coulda swore he looked about your age…"

What Faith said before was true. Joanne had come from Korea as an international student who started to homestay at a local deacon's house, close to the church. For five years, she lived in California, learning English and such and eventually, she began to look and sound like a native Californian.

"Hey, what's that on the ground right there?" Joanne said, pointing towards the pavement.

Faith looked at where she pointed and, sure enough, saw the box that had sat in her lap several minutes ago. She quickly went up and picked the box back up, dusting the top of it off. She sighed again.

"What's inside the box?"

"Oh, this?" Faith said, slightly lifting the box up. "Just a memento of my first night out with him."

"With Derek?"

"Duh, who else?"

Joanne sat there, thinking. "So… what is exactly inside?"

"A pair of shoes." Faith said, smiling.

Joanne was slightly taken aback. "That's it? A pair of shoes?"

Faith stuck her lip out. "It was a gift he bought me that night… I actually never wore the shoes…"

Joanne contained her laughter. "So you never actually used his gift… how thoughtful."

Faith groaned. "It's not like that Jo…"

"Whatever." Joanne said. "Can you open the box? Or did you not even use the box as well?"

"Of course I opened it, you dolt."

"Then can I see those special shoes in there?"

Faith sighed. "Go ahead."

Joanne took the box from Faith's hands and set it down on her lap. She slowly took the lid off of the box and opened it up. Inside the box was a pair of custom made Converse Brand sneakers. They were a faded pink with an artistically drawn star placed where the ankles would be. The laces were black and unused. The tips of the shoes were black as well and pretty shiny, glistening off the afternoon sun. Inside the box was also a Polaroid photo. In the photo were two people, one attractive girl smiling happily while a handsome boy kissed her cheek. Beneath the picture was a date written with a fine-point sharpie that must have faded out or smeared away at one point.

"First date, right?" Joanne said, flipping over the photo to show Faith.

She nodded.

"Well, you guys sure as hell looked happy…" Joanne said.

"Thanks for the past tense with that Jo." Faith said sarcastically.

"Hey c'mon." Joanne said playfully. "Can't I make a joke without being hammered with your sarcasm?"

"You leave yourself open to it." Faith said shrugging.

Joanne looked back at the shoes. "Anyway, why didn't you where these? They look pretty good… and quite expensive."

Faith sighed. "It's kind of embarrassing but I couldn't where those shoes…"

"Because?"

"… because they were too small…"

"Are you serious…"

Faith nodded.

"So are you saying that these shoes, which look adequate enough for someone like me, are too damn small for you?"

"Pretty much sums up everything." Faith said.

"Such a shame." Joanne said, closing the box's lid.

"Y'know…" Faith said. "If you think that they are going to waste… you can have 'em."

"Are you being serious right now?"

Faith thought for a moment. "I was thinking about what you said… About getting over these things… There are just some things that are better to let go than to cling onto… and besides, what am I going to do with a small pair of shoes from my Ex that I never go to wear?"

Joanne laughed. "Good point."

"So… yeah… You can have them."

Joanne stood up, box in hand. "You sure?"

Faith smiled. "Those shoes have been haunting me for all those years. So yes. Take them. It's time for me to let them go anyway."

Faith stood up and began to walk into the church building.

"Thanks Faith…" Joanne said grinning, looking at Faith.

Faith turned around and returned a smile. Then the church bells began to ring.

"C'mon. We're gonna be late for service." Faith said, walking fast towards the door.

Joanne nodded, still smiling. "Right behind you."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**PRESENT DAY…**_

Faith smashed the already caved in skull of a lying roamer. She had finally made it to the bottom of the stairwell and she still had one match left to spare. Lifting her foot from the bloody mess, she scraped her boot on the tiled floor. Faith realized that at the base floor of the stairwell, a rancid stench loomed all around. Of course, it may have been because of the roamer she had just killed but she knew that the smell had been there for a long time, just by how foul the air felt and smelled around her.

Using the last ounce of light she had in her hand, Faith spun around and found the door leading outside. As she creaked open the door, her eyes were bombarded with the luminous sunlight… or what was left of it.

It was already late in the afternoon. Instinctively, Faith turned her head to her wrist. And then she remembered. She gave the watch back to Sam. It was a white and red G-Shock they had scavenged while escaping San Francisco. Sam had given it to Faith, slightly out of a joke because she was pretty bad at managing her time. Daniel even found batteries to go along with it.

The apocalypse was new to them those early days. Everyone, including Sam, resorted to wishful thinking. They all believed that the military would run its course and eventually bring a stop to the madness. During the first days, when everyone was alive, everyone believed that this was going to happen.

They were never so wrong.

Sam was the first to crack when it came to relying on the government. He said that while he and Daniel went to scout around, they saw the National Guard get massacred at the downtown area. They even attempted to fly out if it weren't for all the roamers grabbing onto the helicopter and dragging it down.

Watching how the National Guard simply attempted to leave the local civilians to their demise, Sam, already wary of the government, severed his beliefs towards them. He was outraged. He thought the government would actually give a damn or two towards the people they were so "eager" to protect. This event told him otherwise.

And that was when he began devising the crazy plan to get out of San Francisco, much to Paul's dismay.

The group was skeptical, even to the point where they would relate Sam to Kenny, but he did have a point. The government wouldn't be back any time soon. And even if they did, it wouldn't be for a very long time. Sam told everyone to break that thought from their minds.

"The government no longer exists." Sam had said. "We have to believe that we are all that's left if we are to survive."

Faith wondered if she made the right choice.

The city of San Francisco would prove to be a good hotspot for a government rescue or even a Forward Operating Base. If survivors stayed in such a popular locale, the government would be able to find them easily. IF the government actually came along in the first place.

But when Joanne made the choice to go, Faith couldn't stay without her.

Was it loneliness? Was it that sense of longing that brought her out onto the road? Faith would never know herself. Even now, she still wondered.

_But what has happened has happened… I gotta press on… I need to find Joanne._

Faith walked the quiet streets of the small town. There weren't any roamers nearby surprisingly. There should have been a massive horde wandering around but Faith didn't hear anything. No moans, no occasional shuffling of feet.

Just… silence.

It made her uncomfortable.

Faith wasn't used to the sounds a roamer would make, their groans and husky moans haunted her mind and almost made her nauseous. She knew that she would never get accustomed to their sounds. But this silence… it unnerved her. It usually meant something was up.

As she approached the corner of the street, a putrid stench hit her nose. It was incredibly nauseating.

Faith leaned against the wall, trying to breathe but it made the situation worse. With every breath, the revolting smell filled her nostrils again.

Trying to contain herself, she slowly walked towards the corner and peered over.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

Several dozens, maybe about a hundred or more so, of roamers were huddled together like a horde. They were all pressed up against the entrance to what appeared to be some sort of financial firm or business building. It wasn't that tall, maybe three four stories high. But that wasn't the point. It was the roamers all piled up against the entrance, clawing and raking at the door and frame.

It looked as if with anymore effort, the door was going to give way.

Faith wondered as to why the roamers all of a sudden piled in one area as if concentrating their forces for an attack.

And then it dawned on her.

The roamers, despite their decaying structure, had a keen sense of smell, being able to distinguish the difference between a living and dead being. If they smelled blood or anything of the sort, they entered this catatonic behavior. The roamers in the immediate area all of a sudden had a unified goal; it was to pursue whoever was giving off the smell of a fresh catch. And this behavior would attract even more nearby dead, prompting in on them to join the chase.

Sam pointed this out to her back in San Francisco.

_But why? Why are the roamers so densely packed here?_

They seemed to be agitated… like they usually were when they found a source of food.

_What could possibly be food around here?... I didn't hear anythi-_

And then it hit her.

The roamers had smelled blood and given chase to the one who was bleeding. And the person must have been bleeding profusely. Faith looked at the pavement leading towards the building and, sure enough, small puddles of blood pooled around several areas before being swarmed by the sea of roamers.

And the only one who could have been nearby AND bleeding profusely was one person and one person only.

JOANNE

Faith breathing quickened as she went back behind the corner. The situation looked grim. Faith knew she had to get to Joanne but how would she manage that without getting devoured herself. For all she knew, Joanne may have died of blood loss and this entire thing would be a wasted effort…

Suddenly, a loud sound rang out.

Faith bolted her head in the direction of the sound.

It came from the building.

The sound was loud and sounded like…

A gunshot.

Someone, who was armed, was alive in there. Someone had to be.

_That someone might be… No, it has to be._

The roamers in front of the building all of sudden increased their force on the door, pounding mercilessly and clawing at the peeling the door frame. Luckily, the door did not topple over as it would have appeared.

The roamers were now clearly focused. They were alerted that their prey was alive and loud.

Faith was now assured that someone was alive in there but how would she get the attention of the sea of roamers away from the door and to somewhere else.

Then she remembered.

She reached back and pulled out the gun that Joanne had given her earlier. It still felt warm to the touch.

Faith thought about it for a moment. If she fired off a shot, the roamers would swarm towards her. She could try to find an opening in the midst of roamers but the possibility of that happening was pretty slim. Plus, Faith was carrying a heavy load on her back. She would be far from agile and maneuverable in a horde of roamers.

She chose against firing her weapon aimlessly. Besides, bullets were precious. She needed to conserve them. Firing into the air would only be fruitless, even if she managed to get the attention of the roamers, which would probably end in failure.

She needed something else to draw the roamers attention. Something loud but something she could distance herself from.

She looked around the street she was on. Trash littered the area and flew along with the afternoon breeze.

And then she saw the cars on the street.

_OF COURSE! _Faith thought to herself. _The car alarms!_

She approached a black, beaten up SUV. She reached the door handle and opened the door. Inside, the car was a bloody mess up in front. Whoever was in the car left in a hurry. Scraps of fabric were laying on the driver seat and blood was soaked deeply into the leather seating of the passenger and driver seat. The car smelled much worse than it looked.

Faith observed the car for a bit. The battery must have been dead however, the car didn't make the usual dinging sound when the door was opened but that was sort of expected. Faith realized that her car alarm idea couldn't be put into action.

And then she looked at the driving wheel.

The horn.

She gave it a light push.

The horn blared in front of her. It startled the crap out of her.

She knew it worked now it was just a matter of how.

She could sit there in the seat and honk on the horn but that wouldn't do any good. She needed to find something else to hold down on it.

As she turned to leave, she felt something grab onto her right shoulder. Faith turned her eyes towards the hand and saw a bony, decayed hand gripping her shoulder tightly. Nearly screaming, Faith leapt away but whatever was inside still had a grip on her backpack strap. She had brought the damn thing too far to leave it behind now.

Her mind racing and her heart pounding, Faith thought quickly on what to do. She reached down for her knife. Feeling around, she couldn't find it. Cold sweat began to creep down her back. Her knife wasn't there.

_Did I misplace it?! It's not in its sheath! _

Looking inside, a roamer snarled as it maintained its iron grip on Faith's backpack.

Faith tried to back away but to no avail. The roamer would not let go.

Faith thought about using the gun but she couldn't get a clear shot on the roamer. She also couldn't get her backpack off without coming back into the grabbing range of the roamer. T

Then Faith got an idea.

She looked at the hand and the arm of the roamer and looked back towards the roamer. She grabbed and twisted the clammy forearm of the roamer and pulled on it as hard as she could. Soon, there was a sickening twist of sinews as the decayed joints and ligaments in the roamers shoulder socket snapped and twisted into an odd angle.

Faith used this to her advantage. With the arm at an awkward angle, the roamer would not be able to maintain its grip on her efficiently. She then proceeded to the break and twist each finger on the roamer's grimy hand. It made her gag slightly but in a moment between life and death, she could care less. Soon, the roamer's entire hand was a mangled mess and could no longer grab onto her.

Free from its grasp, Faith knew she still had to take care of the roamer if she wanted to use the car horn. Seeing as that the roamer was in the back seat, Faith had to open the back door and deal with it then.

She went to the door and opened it, ready to take on the roamer. But the roamer didn't come at her in the way she expected. The roamer reached for her but couldn't get to her. It had its seatbelt on still.

_I thought those things were designed to save lives… _She thought to herself.

Faith would need to undo the seatbelt and deal with the roamer that way.

Readying her hand, she quickly reached over to the lower part of the seatbelt and pressed the dirty red button that unfastened the seatbelt. And soon enough, the roamer began to claw its way towards her. It was approaching her fast.

When its head popped out from the car door, Faith slammed the door on the roamer's head as hard as she could. The roamer's head came apart like a watermelon, its brain falling towards the floor, looking something like a rotten mushy tomato thrown on the ground.

Faith would have thrown up but her mind was focused elsewhere. She reopened the car door and out fell the dead roamer.

"Got you, you walker sonuvabitch."

Faith caught herself saying the term walker. Everyone else called the dead that. She and Joanne referred to them as the roamers.

_Roamers… walkers… what's the difference? They're both dead anyway._

She grabbed the walker by the shoulders and hoisted its body onto the driver's seat. Focusing its weight on the driver's wheel, Faith let the dead weight body to fall on top of the wheel and sure enough, the blaring horn came back on.

_This will get their attention._

Quickly darting behind the vehicle, Faith peered over the car's roof towards the building. The roamers, or walkers, heard the noise of the horn and began to the shuffle towards the car. Soon, the entire horde was on its way to the car.

_It's working! Yes!_

Soon the roamers were incredibly close. Then, a thought hit Faith.

_How the hell am I going to get around the roamers?_

She didn't think of that.

_Aw… shit…_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**(A/N): I DRAGGED THIS LONGER THAN I SHOULD HAVE! AHHH! DARN IT! ANYWAY, I AM ENDING IT HERE! SORRY! Thanks for reading though! Be sure to leave a word or PM for any OC you'd like to suggest! Be sure to check out HyRool's story as well! Thanks again!**

**UNTIL NEXT TIME,**

**~SAYONARA~**


	4. Chapter 4: Call the Shot

**Disclaimer: I ****do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes:**** If you have any OC suggestions or OCs you would like to be in this FanFiction, please PM me and I'll see what I can do! **

**Sorry for the late update! I was working on a different project over the week and I couldn't focus my time for this! It's a FanFic by my friend HyRool. You should all go check it out! (I wrote chapter 5, hehe.)**

**Anyway, here's the stuff you came for. Hopefully you enjoy it.**

**Much love,**

**~SAYONARA~**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!

The walkers started get closer and closer, hearing the loud blare of the car horn. It diverted their attention from the office building and that was good. The bad part was now that they were making their way to the car. And Faith was right behind the car.

She had been careless. She formulated a plan that would work easily but she hadn't thought of a method of escape. It was incredibly easy to get the attention of a group of walkers with loud noise. The hard part would be shifting the walkers' attention to the loud noise rather than having them focus on her. Walkers were quite stupid but not stupid enough. They knew how to distinguish between a living being and one that was dead. And now, their ultimate attention would most definitely be on Faith.

Faith peered off from the side of the car once more, trying to get a good visual of the walkers. The horde was more than the average sized horde. Maybe about fifty or hundred or more so. The walker numbers were so great. When the walkers were advancing from the corner, they compacted the area so much that there wasn't enough space for anyone to be able to squeeze through. It didn't help Faith's morale one bit.

The walkers only came closer.

Faith took out her hand gun and unloaded the magazine. The magazine was intended for about thirteen rounds before the user had to reload. Joanne had maintained the piece very well, constantly cleaning it and loading a bullet when there was space in the clip. Personally, Faith disliked the use of firearms, they made her hands hurt and they were loud. Despite the risk, Faith preferred bladed weapons. Melee weapons wouldn't need a reload. And that reminded Faith. Faith had used a bullet earlier and Joanne must've used the gun a several times while escaping that night several days before.

There were about only five rounds left in the magazine.

Looking back at the horde, Faith came to the unsurprising conclusion that she would not be able to fight off the walkers. Even if she had her knife with her, she'd still be overwhelmed and swarmed like an incapacitated insect in front of a nest of ants.

Faith loaded the magazine back into the handgun. Her only options as of now would be either to wait out the walkers as they swarmed the car or shoot her way through with the remaining bullets she had and create a opening, no matter how small, through the horde.

Neither choice was preferred, mainly because both of them, if handled wrongly, would result in a rather horrifying death. Faith shivered slightly, the sound of death ringing in her ear.

Faith observed her surrounding once more. There were no windows to scale, no fire escapes to access. Doors and access ways to any near building was boarded up and Faith simply did not have the time to sit around and pry each individual nail out of the board with a slim chance surviving.

Most of the walkers passed the corner. If Faith moved now, she would definitely be seen. Sure, she wouldn't be heard by the walkers, the car horn took care of that, but the walkers would probably see her or smell her or whatever it is that they do. Faith shook her head in disgust of herself. She got herself into the mess. She was being careless, a trait that had started to appear ever since the inception of the living dead.

Faith thought about heading back to building she came from but immediately decided against it. She did not want to wander aimlessly in the dark of the building she just came out of and she didn't want a massive horde on her tail simultaneously. She also opted against making a huge circular detour around the small area to get back onto the main street of the building. Much of the town was unexplored, a misplaced direction or a faulty move would prove to be fatal.

Faith cursed under her breath, hesitant to decide what course of action she was to take. If she tried to get through the wall of walkers and ended up getting bit, her fate was sealed. Biting her lip, Faith thought as hard as she could but alas, she couldn't come up with a decisive solution.

What would Joanne do?

Joanne. Faith had almost forgotten that Joanne was in the building and the whole purpose behind what she was doing. If Faith died now, it would be in vain. She needed to get through horde no matter what. And she couldn't die.

_No… not now…_

Faith set her resolve.

_I haven't survived this long to die now… Hold on Joanne._

Faith quickly ran her strategies in her head and only one plan remained sound.

It was to fight through the horde.

Faith cocked her gun and gripped it tightly in her hand. She would have no choice but to use it. There were five bullets in the chamber. She would have to use them sparingly. She would've used her knife but that was nowhere to be found. Faith briefly looked on the ground to see if there were any suitable weapons she could use. There was a pile of rubble next to the car tire and there was nothing inside the pile that was worth using, or taking for the matter. Beside the pile however, there was a thin, red-shaded metal bar that had a hooked end.

It was a crowbar.

Picking up the metal crowbar, Faith bounced it in her hands a couple of times. It was a bit heavy for her tastes but she wasn't complaining. It was better than using a gun that only had a small amount of ammunition left. Faith quickly holstered her firearm and gripped the crowbar.

She had a choice to wait until the walkers were close or simply bolt out now and make a go for it.

Faith wasn't going to sit around until she was swarmed.

Taking a deep breath, Faith came out from the shelter of car and into the line of sight of the walkers. A majority of the walkers were too focused on the sound to notice Faith but a several walkers saw her and shambled their way towards her. Faith ran towards them.

Faith ran towards the nearest walker and swung the metal crowbar in her hands as hard she could. Behind the sturdy the metal end, Faith could feel the decayed skull of the walker crack from the force. It was accompanied with an equally grotesque sound. The walker fell without much resistance.

Another walker limped towards her, jaw gaping and moaning. Faith swung the hooked edge of the crowbar at the walker and it lodged partially into the temple of the walker. The walker was dead but the crowbar was still inside its skull. Pulling the crowbar and walker towards her, Faith gave the corpse a solid kick in the chest and the crowbar tore itself free from the walker's skull, the body of the walker tripping several others.

There was a small opening between the crowd of walkers and Faith saw it. She sprinted past unwary walkers and quickly yet carefully maneuvered her way through the horde. The walkers were still too preoccupied with the blaring car horn to pay much attention to her. Faith used that to her advantage and moved as fast as she could. She could feel the hands and shoulders of the walkers scrape her as she moved through the thick horde. Soon, the building was back in sight and most of the horde had receded. Only a few roamers remained. And they all saw her.

There were about four walkers approaching her, each of them at a different distance from her. If Faith were to play her cards right, she would be able to deal with them one by one without being swarmed uncontrollably.

The closest walker reached for her. Faith swung the crowbar with full speed. The walker's neck was bent in an awkward angle as it head recoiled from the blow. However, the walker did not fall from the single blow. It turned its head forcefully back towards Faith, its teeth snapping at her. Faith felt her heart take a plunge. The walkers from earlier were felled from a single crowbar blow to the head. This one didn't. The attack only aggravated its attempt to snap at her.

Then Faith observed the walker more carefully.

Its skin wasn't as sickly yellow or gray as the other walkers were. Decay hadn't had much effect on the corpse yet. Faith also observed the walker's face. It was male. Its eyes were the usual glossy white of the decayed walker. The eyes still retained color before reanimation, a light brown. The gums along the teeth of the walker weren't decayed and black either. It was a faded pink. Other than the horrible bruise Faith gave the walker on its face, it almost looked…

Human…

Faith swung again in the same place, this time harder than last time.

Faith felt and heard the crowbar crush the temple of the walker's skull and damage the inside brain matter. Still, the walker persisted in its attempt to devour her. Faith delivered one final blow to the weakened skull and felt the end of metal connect with the inner parts of the brain. The walker gave one final groan before falling flat on its face, finally dying.

Faith felt cold sweat, despite her situation, drip down her back. The walkers that she had faced so far were easy to kill. Their bodies were so decayed, virtually no real effort was needed unless the walkers came in hordes at a time. But these walkers were different. They were… fresh. They lacked the effect of decay on their bodies and thus required more strength and energy to put back down. If Faith was swarmed by a horde full of them…

_No. I won't be that careless…_

There were three walkers left.

Faith looked at her crowbar and back at the walkers slowly approaching her. She saw how much effort it took to take one of them down, and that walker was by itself. The next three were sort of clumped together, moving in a group. Faith could bypass the walkers and get to the door but if she wasn't able to open the door in time, she'd be screwed. Kicking down the door wasn't an option at this point. It would keep the walkers at bay and prevent them from getting inside, kicking it down would only worsen the situation.

Wiping the sweat that had pooled on her forehead, Faith rested her arm back at her side and felt it brush against something hard. Briefly looking down, Faith saw the grip of her gun jutting out, as if waiting to be used.

Faith quickly looked to her right and saw that the walkers had lost their interest towards the car horn. They were coming back towards her. Faith groaned. She had been unlucky many times in her life, all trivial matters at most. But nothing in her life, all combined, could match up to what she went through today. And now, everything depended on her decisions whether she could call the shot or not.

It was now or never.

Faith pulled out her gun and pointed it at the walkers immediately in front of her. Guns always made her a tad bit uncomfortable, even before all this. They were loud, unremarkably heavy, and a pain to maintain. Faith wondered how Joanne managed to do so throughout this hell-on-earth. She pointed in at the walker closest to her. She lined her sight on the gun.

And pulled the trigger.

Faith hadn't anticipated the sound to be as loud as it was. It hurt her ears quite a bit, leaving a ringing in them. The shot was a clean one. It had entered the walker's eye and exited cleanly through from the eye cavity and out the back of its head. The walker's knees swayed as it fell onto its side lifelessly.

The gunshot livened up the horde even more. It had broken through the blaring of the car horn and alerted the walkers up to Faith's presence. They all began to moan and shamble towards her.

Faith pulled up the gun again and lined up her shot carefully with a steady aim. Letting out her breath for a steadier aim, Faith softly pulled the trigger on the gun.

A spiked wave of blood erupted from the walker's head as the bullet cleared its way through the walker's skull. Faith had also been unprepared for the kind of recoil the handgun gave off, kinda injuring her wrist. There was always something about shooting with her. She could focus on two or three things when shooting but Faith would always forget another vital aspect. She would brace her ears for sound and hold her hands steady for her shot but her wrists wouldn't be prepared for the knockback of the gun. It all really boiled down to her dislike of firearms. She could kind of handle handguns but rifles and heavier weapons were beyond her comprehension. That was Joanne's field of expertise.

And Sam's.

Quickly pushing the thoughts out of her mind, Faith brought her handgun up again. The last walker approached her. This walker seemed far more decayed than the previous ones she had faced. The lining around its mouth had a dark shade of brown and peeling skin. Its gums were darker too. The pupils in its eyes were sort of a glossy gray.

Whether it was more decayed or not, Faith aimed her gun once more.

But she was unprepared for what came next.

As soon as she pulled the trigger, the walker somehow ducked from the line of fire. Rolling its head back up, it used its hand to swipe at Faith. In that process, it knocked Faith's handgun out of her hand. Dumbfounded with what had just happened, Faith came back to her senses when she heard the clattering of her weapon as it slid away from her, virtually making it impossible to retrieve.

Faith kicked the walker in the chest to give herself distance but as she did, the walker grabbed her leg, pulling her closer. Her heart racing, Faith swung out her crowbar at the walker as its jaws came dangerously close to clamping down on her leg. The walker recoiled from the impact and wheeled away slightly. Faith then gave a well-placed swing from her crowbar and crushed the back of the walker's head, killing it instantly.

Gathering her bearings, Faith looked behind her and saw that horde had gained much ground than anticipated. If she had been several seconds late killing that walker, she would have been overwhelmed. She ran to the door and tugged on the handle, surprising it was open. Swinging the door open, Faith quickly ran into the building and closed the door behind her.

Leaning against the wood of the door, Faith tried to catch her breath. When she looked around her surroundings, something was off. The room should have been a lot darker than it was already. And she began to hear more carefully, the ringing from the gunshots wearing off. It sounded like someone tapping against a wooden floor. Then Faith felt a vibrating next to her foot.

She looked down and nearly screamed.

A walker managed to squeeze its hand through the office building's main door. Despite the force Faith had exerted by pushing on the door, it wasn't enough to sever the hand. Without a sharp edge, Faith wouldn't be able to close the door. And if she wasn't able to close the door, the walkers would swarm the entrance, virtually dooming her.

There was no way she could sever the walker's hand, which was still clawing and raking the floor, by simply pushing harder on the door. That would be a waste of time. In the spur of the moment, Faith slammed down the pointy end of the crowbar on the walker's hand. It pierced through the bone and out of the hand. However, it didn't spike the walker to the ground. Faith swiftly opened the door and pulled the walker inside, dragging it across the floor using the curved end of the crowbar. With the adrenaline pumping, Faith quickly pulled the walker inside. She kicked the door shut and yanked her crowbar out of the walker's hand, blood spurting wildly. As the walker looked up at her, Faith slammed the pointy edge into its eye, crushing the eye socket at destroying the brain.

Faith had barely caught her breath when the poundings on the door started again. It was terrifying to say the least. The door looked like as if it would come down any second. Faith observed the door handle. There were two doors and handles. They were curved. The one that Faith had come through was the one that opened between the two. The other door was just for architectural design. The door rattled from the constant poundings of the walker's outside. Faith thought for a moment. She could put her crowbar inside the door handles and use it as a barrier mechanism so the walkers can't break through. But if she did that, she wouldn't have weapon to defend herself with.

Other than the incessant pounding on the door, the building was relatively quiet, leading Faith to wonder what caused the gunshot. If there was anything up in the building, Faith would still need to defend herself, the gunshot solidified her point. She opted not to block the door with the crowbar.

Looking at the stairs, Faith sighed, most of her adrenaline being depleted at this point. Fatigue began to wear down on her body. She would need to rest soon. But Faith knew that she wasn't going to kick back and relax until she found Joanne.

Stretching herself, Faith glared down the stairs.

She had some climbing to do.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Whoever escaped from the building practically left the entire place in ruin. Faith hadn't had much time to inspect the first floor but by the time she reached the second floor, it was a disaster. Tables were overturned, computers and printers thrown into disarray, the filing cabinets flung open. There were several corpses on the grounds, their heads beaten to a bloody pulp. Either these were walkers or simply murder victims. It was too dark for Faith to distinguish whether the bodies were here for long or not. Given the smell, these bodies were probably here for some time. Regardless, they gave off a putrid stench. Faith had been around dead bodies and walkers for a long time. Despite that "intimate" time spent in such close proximity with the dead, Faith never got use to the smell. Actually, Faith hoped that she never would. She needed to stay on her toes, the smell would alert her.

Other than the fly-infested corpses, the second floor was untouched by walker activity.

Faith decided that she seen enough on the current floor. There was only one more floor anyway.

Maybe whoever fired that gun was still up there.

_That's where Joanne must be._

Navigating her way through the junk on the ground, Faith made her way to the stairway to the next and final floor. As she took her first step, something felt different.

There seemed to be some kind of liquid oozing across the surface of the stairs. It was too dark to tell what it was but Faith figured out that it was blood. It wasn't too fresh but it was blood. She worked around dead bodies long before the rise of the dead and was easily able to distinguish that metallic, hard smell that lingers around the air.

Thinking about the blood brought Faith back so much memories of her life during Med School. The long hours she spent studying human anatomy. The sleepless nights she spent in the library, cramming for her finals. And finally the human dissections.

Those were the absolute worst.

Simply thinking about the sharp-bladed scalpel running across the human skin made her queasy, despite the body being already dead. Faith remembered how badly she handled her first dissection session. She nearly threw up her lunch during the first thirty seconds.

Looking back now, Faith wondered what had happened to her.

Now, beating bodies to a bloody pulp were like a daily chore. Difficult yet still must be done. She used to be sickened at the sight of blood but now it was simply another eyesore in the world.

The world had changed her so much in so little.

But it felt like an eternity ago.

Faith climbed up the dripping steps as the blood pooled off the sides. Faith swore she could feel soft things beneath her feet as she made her way up. Possibly flesh and bits.

The floorboards along the stairs creaked with every step, further making the atmosphere a bit more tense than it should have.

At last, Faith reached the top of the stairway.

This floor was completely different from the other two floors.

Walker bodies lined the floor, each of them sprawled out awkwardly. Lighting was significantly better up on the top floor, receiving most of the sun's leftover light. Faith saw the pool of blood each walker gave out, creating an ocean along the wooden surface of floor. Faith noted that each of the walker's heads was blown to pieces. No melee weapon could dish out such punishing damage. It had to be a firearm of some sort.

_Maybe a shotgun… or something…_

The hallway with all the dead bodies didn't stretch very far. The bodies however did lead up to the end of the hallway.

And there was door that was partially open.

Steadily, Faith walked across the hallway, making sure to avoid most of the walkers on the floor. As she got close to the door, she saw something jutting out of the head of walker. It had a plastic grip and a rusted thin steel shaft. It rested inside the skull of the walker. Faith looked carefully and saw a bloody handprint on the grip.

_Joanne used this earlier!_

There was a creak from behind the door.

Faith stood still, as if suspended by time, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Faith slowly reached the doorknob but stopped, merely centimeters away. Faith listened carefully. There was a muffled breathing behind the door. Someone was behind the door. Faith had no idea who but SOMEONE was.

"J-Joanne?" Faith called out.

No answer.

Faith felt her heart dropping. She could feel the tears welling in her eyes. She felt a lump rising in her throat. She felt like she could cry any second. It made it seem like everything she went through had been in vain…

_No. Don't be like this Faith. _

Faith wiped her eyes. That sounded like something Joanne would say. Faith reached for the door handle one more time.

_Have a little faith._

And she opened the door.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**(A/N): SO SORRY I AM ENDING IT RIGHT HERE! Writing this in a matter of a couple of hours is painstaking work. I'm not complaining. I had fun. I'm not sure whether it'll please you readers but hopefully it was worth the wait… I doubt it was… **

**ANYWAY! After this is published, I will work on HyRool's Fanfiction for one last chapter and I'll resume full force back onto my writing! Stay tuned everyone! Oh, and thanks for reading! Leave a review or something! I really appreciate it! AND, if you have the time, check out HyRool's Fanfiction!**

**Until next time,**

**~SAYONARA~**


	5. Chapter 5: Interlude of the Mind

**Disclaimer: I ****do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes:**** If you have any OC suggestions or OCs you would like to be in this FanFiction, please PM me and I'll see what I can do! **

**So... last time on... Y'know what, how about you read chapter 4 and find out for yourself? HAHA. All jokes aside, thanks for keeping up with my story guys. I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. If you can, please leave a word or two, that'll mean the world to me.**

**Anyway, here's the stuff you came for. Hopefully you enjoy it.**

**Much love,**

**~SAYONARA~**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Something was burning. Faith had no idea what, but something was burning and it smelled terrible. Well, that was expected. San Francisco Airport was utterly destroyed, wreckage from planes littering the grounds and several planes burning brightly off in the distance. The airport terminals fared no better. There were hundreds of body bags strewn along the marble floor of the reception terminals. There was no military personnel to be found nor were there any survivors.

There were no walkers either.

"Keep your eyes peeled."

Faith glanced over at Sam as he kept a wary watch over the area, knife in hand.

Faith tightened her grip on her bow, feeling the firm rubber grip beneath her grasp. She held an arrow on the side, ready to fire. Faith carefully maneuvered over a piece of twisted metal as she walked along cracked airways.

"It's odd, don't you think?" Faith quiped, looking around.

Sam raised his eyebrow as he kicked a piece of sheet metal out of his way. "What makes you say that?"

"It's quiet... Too quiet..." Faith said, her eyes darting all over the place. "I don't like it... it's as if something is going to pop out when I least expect it."

Sam chuckled. "True... But I'll prefer this over the constant moaning of walkers."

"Roamers." Faith said, correcting Sam."

Rolling his eyes, Sam sighed. "Whatever."

The silence held an ominous meaning. Faith had no idea what that meaning may be but ever since the dead started to roam around, silence like this was incredibly rare. And if it ever became this quiet, something was up. There just had to be.

Of course, without the immediate threat of swarming walkers, scavenging was a lot easier. However, there simply wasn't anything to take. Unless Faith had developed some new way to use rubble and scrap metal, everything around was useless. Maybe Paul could have figured out something with all the materials but Faith wasn't going to lug several pounds worth of junk with the slim chance that there MIGHT be. She wasn't going to risk herself by carrying all the excess weight.

"Do you think we can do anything at all with this crap lying around?" Faith asked, picking up a small sheet of metal and tossing it back onto the ground. "I wouldn't know anything about this kind of stuff..."

Sam took quick look around and at all the wreckage around him. He merely shrugged his shoulders.

"You're asking the wrong guy." Sam quipped. "This is something Paul would know."

Faith put her a hand on her hip. "What exactly is it that you know?"

Sam looked up at her. "What I know? Not much. But what I DO know is that wandering aimlessly around here isn't going to do us any good. C'mon, we gotta look for a place we can take shelter for the night."

Faith nodded, kicking the scrap metal out of her way. The metal outer layer skidded across the black asphalt, creating quite a racket before coming to a stop at another pile of rubble. But the sound it made wasn't what Faith had expected. Metal hitting against metal would make a hard hitting sound. Instead, it sounded... organic.

Like hitting against flesh.

Faith looked up at Sam, who had also caught on the sound, and looked back at the pile of rubble. Smashed wooden boards and twisted metal made quite a hefty pile of wreckage. Faith couldn't see how the sound was heard as it was. And then she heard something else.

It sounded like the rustling of cloth against the rough floor. Faith saw the pile start to move and shift around. Something was in there. The wooden shafts fell to the floor, scraps of metal clanged against the hard surface. Something, whatever it was, was alive in there and it was trying to get out.

And then Faith saw the hand.

It was a gray, ashy color. The fingernails were missing, as if forcefully removed, Burns and cuts laced around the already battered hand. The hand had extended itself from the rubble and tried to pull the vessel that it was so dearly attached to out of the wreck. Soon, the whole arm appeared out from the wreck. The tattered remnants of a sleeve clung onto the gray flesh. Old dry blood acted as the glue that kept the shirt sleeve stuck onto the arm. Towards the shoulder, Faith could see the arm had actually had a coat sleeve covering the shirt but the coat was torn away.

And then, Faith heard the moan.

And finally, the head was free.

He was perhaps an aging man, mid to late forties, maybe even the early fifties. Faith could make out some faded wrinkles in the man's face. His eye was a piercing blue and tuft of silver hair rested slightly above his forehead.

And that was where the description of a human being ended.

The man's mouth was torn open, as if someone jammed a blade into his mouth and ran it out through his cheek. His jaw hung loosely on his face, like a partially unhinged door, hanging by a stretch of skin. The left side of his face was entirely missing, unidentifiable. A black hole resided in where his eye should have been. The upper portion of his head was burnt away, a dark crisp, leaving several patches of bright pink flesh lining the scalp.

And he continued crawling.

Crawling out of the wreckage, his mouth was spread wide open, sort of like a sick, twisted smile. Then a noxious smell invaded Faith's nose. It must have taken a while to register but when the scent did, it hit her hard. It smelled like a decomposing corpse that was had caught on fire… Faith assumed and it smelled terrible. She covered her mouth, feeling her insides churn.

The walker was soon free of the wreckage and continued to crawl towards the two. Faith then saw that the walker had not emerged the wreckage unscathed. In fact, the entire lower half of the walker's body was missing, buried somewhere underneath the pile of rubble or perhaps even devoured away by other walkers before reanimation. The walker continued to drag itself, unaware that its charred innards had tangled themselves around the wreckage. Faith felt as if she would vomit any second.

Sam noticed Faith's distress and walked on over to the walker. The walker could crawl no further, its intestines had coiled themselves around a jutting piece of stray metal and immobilized it. Sam knelt in front of the walker which still clawed at him, trying to bite him. Faith heard Sam mutter something underneath his breath before he dispatched the walker by stabbing his knife into its eyeless socket. The walker crumpled down without a sound.

Faith cleared her throat as she walked towards the walker and Sam. She saw Sam cut a piece of cloth away from the walker's shirt and use the scrap to wipe his knife. She saw the blade glisten clean in the sunlight and made out the initials L.S that lined along the sharp blade. Sam sheathed his knife and clipped the sheath closed. He looked at Faith and turned back to the corpse. He knelt down next to it. Faith looked at Sam, intrigued.

"What are you doing?" She asked, crouching and putting her hands on her knees.

Sam pointed at the corpse. "Didn't ya notice?"

"Notice what?"

Sam took a step to the walker and flipped the body onto its back. Faith noticed an aviary badge still clipped onto the corpse's shredded coat. The coat seemed to be made out of expensive material, similar to a sports jacket or a blazer that would go along with a business suit.

_But the aviary pin…_

"This guy was a pilot." Sam concluded, rubbing his nose.

Faith raised her eyebrow and glanced at Sam. "How can you be so sure?"

"Well, he looks the part…" Sam said.

Faith glared at him.

"No, hear me out. Look at his aviary badge. That's standard issue for all pilots commandeering international flights."

Sam knelt down next to the corpse and pulled the aviary pin off of the corpse's torn shirt. It fell apart without much effort. Sam tossed the badge to Faith and she caught it with shaky hands. The front face of the badge had an incredible amount of scratches, making the insignia illegible. Despite the obvious damage, the badge still gleamed with light. She felt the hard dents and rough scratches that lined the badge.

"So…" Faith said, still rubbing the badge. "What's the point of mentioning this?"

Sam wiped his face with his gloved hand. "We've established that this guy is an international flight pilot, right?"

"Yeah…?"

"He's got to have a plane somewhere."

Faith looked at Sam, dumbfounded. "Are you actually looking for plane? Amidst this wreckage?"

"The remains of one more like it." Sam said. "Supplies, y'know?"

"Not sure what you'll be able to salvage from a wreck like the ones around us…" Faith muttered.

"Better than groveling around accomplishing nothing." Sam said, running his hand through his hair. He looked up at the sun. "Do you have the time?"

"Uh… no?" Faith replied. "I lost my watch."

Sam nodded slightly. "I'll be sure to find one for you later…"

"That'll be nice." Faith said as she shoved the aviary badge into her pocket. But something prevented her. She looked down at her pant leg.

The badge wouldn't fit into her pocket. She already had something in there.

Still holding onto the badge, Faith pulled out whatever was in her pocket. It was rectangular in shape and had a rubber case.

It was a cell phone.

Faith saw Sam eyeball the phone. "Where'd you get that?"

"I-I…" Faith pressed the power button on the side of the device. It powered on dimly, running on reserve battery life. Despite the dim backlight, Faith could make out the wallpaper on the phone. It was of a girl and a boy, smiling at the camera happily. The boy had light brown hair and a small scar that ran down his left cheek. He had light brown eyes. "I must have borrowed this from Joanne a while back… I forgot to give it back to her…"

"That's Joanne's?" Sam asked, still eyeing the phone. "That explains why she didn't pick up the phone…"

"I guess…" Faith said, looking at the wallpaper. She simply stared at the screen.

Sam tapped her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Faith seemed startled herself. "Oh! Ah, nothing… Just her wallpaper…"

"What about it?"

"She hasn't changed it after all these years… not to mention that she still held onto the same model for all this time…"

"Strange…" Sam said. "Well, I can tell from the picture that the girl is Joanne… but who's the guy?"

"Oh, that's her brother."

Sam stared at her shocked. "Joanne had a brother?!"

"Yeah, that was news to me too."

The two stood there in silence.

"Anyway!" Sam said, breaking the silence. "We should probably get looking for the remains of that plane… if there are any anyway…"

The two walked away from the corpse and continued down the cracked runway. The ground was still heavily littered with scraps of metal and fleeting paper bits. Faith did her best to not step on the rubble, trying not to make any more noise than she had to. It was rather difficult. There were barely any patches of ground that was free of all the waste.

"Faith! Look over there!" Sam said, pointing towards something.

And Faith saw it too.

Just a little beyond the heaps of rubble, a tail end of what seemed like a private jet was left intact. Other than the fact that it had broken off the end of a jet, it remained unscathed from the holocaust around it.

"What about that, huh?" Sam said, grinning to himself.

"Never would have expected it…"

The two began to walk towards the tail of the jet.

"So tell me about Joanne's brother." Sam said, stepping over flattened barrel.

"Well, he does business first off. Has his own company or something. He's the one that paid for all of Joanne's expenses while she lived here in Cali."

Sam whistled. "Makin' bank, that guy… What about her parents? Joanne's parents?"

Faith bit her lip. "They passed away in a traffic accident a long time ago. Joanne's brother has been taking care of her ever since."

Faith tried to say that statement with as much objectivity as she could.

"Damn…" Sam said. "That's terrible…"

Faith kicked a pipe out of her way. "It is… Joanne's brother took over her father's business after he passed. He's been running the show and calling the shots in his father's stead."

"That's quite a heavy load he has on his shoulders…" Sam said. "It's amazing that he still looks after Joanne amidst all that."

"I'll say…"

Sam then looked at Faith for a moment. She looked back at him, intrigued. "What is it?"

"How do you think he's doing? Joanne's brother?"

Faith stuck out her lip, thinking. "I dunno… Safe I hope?"

"I hope so too…" Sam said. "What was the last thing you heard about him?"

Faith thought back for a moment.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE…**_

"The trip is getting closer and closer." Faith said as she shut the door behind her. "I can't wait to see everyone again."

"Neither can I." Joanne said. "I miss everyone so much."

Faith sat herself down on a nearby chair and pulled it up next to Joanne who sat by the table, working on something. "Yeah… that reminds me, how are you and Sam…?"

Joanne shook her head. "Oh no. That ended while ago. I found out that the relationship wasn't going to work… so yeah… Long story short, we are no longer together…"

"Oh… that sucks…" Faith said.

Joanne shrugged. "It was fun while it lasted… Sam and I are still on good terms, so don't worry. The trip isn't going to be an awkward awkward-fest."

"Sure as hell hope not." Faith said, reaching for the cup of water resting on the wooden table in front of her. She took a sip. Looking over at Joanne, Faith saw that she was simply gazing emptily out the window and beyond. Setting the cup aside, Faith tapped her gently.

"Hey, is something wrong?" Faith asked, tugging Joanne's sleeve.

Joanne sighed. "It's my brother."

Faith raised her eyebrow. "What about him?"

"He's coming to visit."

Faith looked at her confused. "That's great, isn't it? I mean, you haven't seen your brother in like forever!"

"You could look at it that way…"

"What other way is there to look it at? It's your brother coming to see you!"

"That's the point."

Faith shook her head. "I am not following you right now. Do you not want your brother to come and visit you in California?"

"No…"

"Then why are you so downcast about it?"

Joanne leaned back into her chair, rubbing her head. "The problem is the period he is going to come and see me."

Faith stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that my brother is coming to visit when we start our reunion trip!"

A silence filled the small apartment room. From outside the window, a pattering of raindrops began to shower down on the balcony. The room began to get cold.

"That's… uh…" Faith began to say. "Quite a problem…"

Joanne rested her face on her palms. She muttered a weak, "I know."

Faith scratched her head for a moment. "Why don't you contact your brother to meet you during the trip?"

"Say what now?"

"You know, you could get your brother to join us on our trip!" Faith suggested.

"My brother." Joanne said. "The head of a multi-million corporation… joining us on a trip… really?"

Faith shrugged. "Why not? I'm sure he'd have fun with us in San Fran."

Joanne sighed, rolling her eyes. "Oh sure…"

"You make it sound like he's some sort of prick."

"He's not."

"But you sure as hell make him seem like one. From all the things I've heard about him from you, he genuinely seems like a nice guy."

"Still… do you think Sam will be okay with it?.. I mean he is in charge of all the finances and everything…"

"I'm sure he'll be fine with it." Faith said. "Besides, he's the one that always says, 'the more the merrier.'"

"Huh… good point…" Joanne said, mumbling to herself. "But-"

Faith put her finger in front of Joanne's face. "No buts before you ask him yourself."

"Wha?! Bu-"

"What did I just say?"

Joanne let out a puff of air, her bangs being lifted by the air. "Do you think he'll get mad? My brother?"

"He's your brother for Christ's sake. What harm is there in asking?"

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**PRESENT…**_

"I don't understand why I'm the last one to hear all this…" Sam muttered. "And you didn't even ask me about her brother joining us!"

"Well, he didn't show up the day he was supposed to come so we simply hoped for the best and just went along on the trip…"

Sam shook his head, saying something to himself under his breath. "Is that the last thing you heard from about him?"

"I think so…" Faith said, brushing her hair away from her face. "Joanne may know more…"

"It's fine… I know enough now anyway." Sam said.

The two came to a stop in front of the plane. It looked much worse from up close than it did from a distance. Damage was evident along the sides of the plane. That was an obvious fact. The tail end of the plane was torn off, damage inevitable. Faith saw metal wiring and hull that jutted out from the plane's outer white shell. It was a grotesque sight even though it wasn't organic in nature. Faith wondered how the tail-end was blown off in the first place.

_Was there a fire?... or was there an explosion?..._

"It was an explosion, if that's what you are thinking." Sam said almost immediately after Faith thought of the possibility. "The cabin would have been torn to shreds by the magnitude of it. But as you can see, some of the windows in the cabin are still intact."

"Speak so I can understand."

"If something exploded inside the plane, we wouldn't be standing in front of the tail end right now."

"Oh. Okay."

Faith looked at the shell of the tail end once more. She saw a faint design that was painted onto the hull. It must have peeled since then. From the corner of her eye, Faith saw Sam observe the tailwing portion of the end.

"Well, I can assure you one thing."

"What is it?" Faith asked, still looking at the flight insignia that was plastered over the plane. It sort of looked familiar to her.

"The dead pilot we saw earlier, this was his plane."

"How so?"

Sam pointed at something underneath the wing. Faith saw a pair of legs.

And that was it. Just a pair of legs.

"Oh God…" Faith said as she stumbled away. When she recomposed herself, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the aviary pin. The shape of the emblem resembled the design that was on the plane. "Well… that explains this."

Sam nodded. He looked at the hatch door which hung partially open.

"I'm gonna take a look inside. Watch my back will you?"

Faith nodded as she saw Sam climb up into the plane. She heard the creaking of the door and metal floor as Sam trekked his way across the cabin. There was a sudden silence. And following that silence was moan.

The moan of a walker.

"You alright in there?" Faith called out.

"Y-yeah…" Sam said. His voice was shaky.

Faith was concerned. "What's wrong Sam?"

"Is Joanne's phone still alive?"

"Yeah, why?" Faith replied, increasingly confused.

Sam popped his head out from the hatch door. His face was pale, as if he had seen a ghost or something of the sort. "H-hand it to me."

Faith pressed the power switch and the phone shone on, the wallpaper still dim as ever. She handed the phone to Sam who disappeared back into the cabin.

"Oh my God…"

That was it. Faith had enough of not knowing. She grabbed onto a metal bar that stuck out and pulled her way up to the cabin door and climbed her way in. When she got through the door, she saw rows of empty seats in the cabin.

All but one.

Sam was standing in front of one particular seat. He held the phone in one hand and his other arm rested limply at his side.

"Sam?..." Faith asked, walking towards him. "What's wrong? Answer me-"

Then she saw the person still strapped into his seat.

He was missing tufts of light brown hair on his head, bald spots evident here and there. His mouth was torn wide open, as if he had chewed his cheeks away. Amidst the terrible shape of his mouth, one would be able to make out a faint scar that ran down his left cheek. His light brown eyes still shone brightly in the midst of death.

"Oh my God…"

Faith felt like she was going to fall down any second. Her legs felt like rubber and her insides churned. She couldn't believe who she was seeing.

"It's him… isn't it…" Sam said quietly as he stood in front of the walker.

The walker instinctively reached for him, its clammy looking hands barely out of reach.

Faith nodded silently.

"What are we going to do…" Sam asked.

Faith couldn't answer.

"We can't just leave him like this…"

"I know that!" Faith exclaimed.

Sam sighed. "I'll do it then."

"Do what?"

Sam looked at Faith sadly. "End his misery."

Sam went up to the walker and looked at him straight in the eyes. He pulled out his revolver and held it at his side. He pulled up the phone one last time and held it front of the walker's face.

"That girl you see right now, that's your sister. She was waiting for you to come. And now you're here, just like any good brother would do."

The walker stopped reaching for Sam momentarily and gazed at the phone screen.

"But now, it seems you'll be the one to do the waiting. I'm sorry for all this."

Sam raised his revolver and placed it right between the walker's light brown eyes. It put up no resistance.

"I'm sorry."

And he pulled the trigger.

The loud gunshot echoed through the cabin but Faith was too preoccupied in her mind to notice.

She saw Sam sigh to himself as he holstered his revolver. He walked over to her.

"Joanne does not hear of this. Ever. You understand?"

Faith nodded unconsciously and unbknownst to her. The reason?

Just before Sam pulled the trigger, Faith saw, or heard, something that she deemed impossible.

She swore that she saw the walker say something moments before it was dealt with.

Faith swore the walker say...

Joanne.

**End of Chapter **

**(A/N): i'm typing this on mobile. SORRY for the quality. Anyway. Hopefully, you liked it. Well, I'm out. See ya soon guys.**

**Until next time,**

**~SAYONARA~**


	6. Chapter 6: Run

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead in any way whatsoever.**

**Author's Notes: If you have any OC suggestions or OCs you**** would like to be in this Fan****Fiction, please PM me and I****'****ll see what ****I**** can do! I****'****m not dead guys. I****'****ve just been lazy as heck. And the last chapter was really, REALLY out of place. I apologize. But anywho, I****'****m continuing this work of mine. ****I'****ve been considering ****whether**** I should make this my primary project or work on other works of mine****…**** I dunno. I****'****ll figure it out soon. Well, here****'****s the stuff you came for y****'****all. Enjoy.**

**MUCH LOVE,**

**~SAYONARA~**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Going into any room in the middle of the apocalypse unprepared is probably one of the worst mistakes one can make in such a dire situation. Faith knew that. This was common sense. Everyone one in her group, hell, even Daniel would know not to head into a new situation unarmed and unprepared. Still, that's what Faith did anyway.

As her hand coiled around the cold, metal doorknob, she opened the door, completely unarmed. Faith lost her knife earlier, she still had no idea how. Faith also lost the handgun Joanne gave her as well. It was lost somewhere outside the building but Faith did not have time to retrieve it. Faith had placed her only weapon at that point, the crowbar, as a makeshift lock on the doors below. It was a bad move, to use her only weapon that way, but Faith had no choice. It was either being swarmed by walkers or roaming the building weaponless. Faith chose the latter.

Faith creaked open the wooden door slowly, the sound of the hinged metal squeaking from use. The wooden floorboards squeaked beneath her every step. Faith held her breath, wary and uncertain as to what would lie before her.

The rest of the building was dead. Nothing that was alive roamed the building. There were several dead bodies but that was it. There were no walkers either. Faith remembered the hallway behind her and the bodies that lined the floor. They were messily killed but neatly stacked on top of each other.

_Whoever it was, they had a morbid sense of organization. _

Then, Faith couldn't wait anymore.

She threw open the door and stepped inside the room.

The lone window that stood parallel to the door did a poor job of illuminating the room. A segmented rectangle of light spread itself onto the floor but the rest of the room still rested in the shadows. The room was a very standard office building for a worker of high standing… Except all the furniture had been pushed to the sides, creating a large space in the middle of the room. Other than that, the room was empty. Devoid of life. Faith sighed as she turned to leave.

Until something caught her eye.

On the wooden floor, Faith made out a very faint trail of blood. It was similar to the blood droplets that Faith had seen that lined the sidewalk outside the building. The blood droplets rested on top of the patch of light from the window and made it very visible. Faith knelt over the blood trail.

_How did this get in here?_

Faith looked at the angle in which the blood trail was made and checked that with the door.

_Someone came into this room bleeding… _

Faith considered if someone had left the room bleeding but that seemed improbable.

_The way the blood is spread and the direction in which the blood splashes… Someone had come into this room bleeding… as if they were seeking refuge-_

Faith froze. She heard something. Among the furniture that was pushed against the walls, Faith definitely heard the clanking of something metallic. The sound had come from behind her. Faith turned and looked at the desks and chairs messily stacked against the wall. She didn't see anything out of sight. Faith tried a different approach.

"Who's there?" She called out, clenching her fists, preparing herself for any possible scenario.

Faith listened carefully, her ears paying close attention to all possible sounds that might escape her ear. She scrutinized everything she could hear as hard as she could. Except… there was just silence. Pure sil-

Faith's eyes darted amongst the furniture. She heard something. It sounded similar to a cough. Something, whatever it was, was alive among the cluttered wooden shelves and chairs. Faith inspected every nook and cranny of the pile, looking for something, SOMEONE, who was still alive.

"Please…" Faith whispered to herself, her heart racing. "Be alive…"

"Faith?"

Faith stopped in her tracks. The voice was quite low and raspy, as if the person speaking had lost their voice. But they knew her name. And the only person around that could possibly know Faith's name was-

"Joanne?!" Faith said, look around, bewildered. She looked around the room as hard and fast as she could.

Then, the creaking of wood sounded from the furniture again. Faith saw that it came from a wardrobe. The door moved slightly. Faith ran to the door and flung open the door.

"Joa-!"

Faith felt a gloved hand shakily clamp her mouth shut. From the glove, Faith could taste and smell a very iron-like taste. The glove was wet with something. Soon, the hand left her face.

Faith looked into the closest and saw who had stopped her.

Her face had turned frighteningly pale, giving her a very ghastly appearance. She held a familiar knife in one hand and her other hand had a deep gash in the palm. Her hair strands were clumped together with appeared to be blood. A portion of her shoulder was torn to shreds by what seemed to be a gunshot. And below that wound was the gaping slit a shard of glass had made.

"J-Joanne... What the hell-?!"

Joanne stiffly looked at her. Unlike her body, her eyes were very lively and wide. As if they were filled with fear.

"You h-have to be q-quiet..." Joanne muttered.

"What? Why?" Faith asked as she looked over Joanne. "What happened?"

"I... I got attacked..."

Faith saw Joanne still wince from the various wounds she had collected. Blood still dripped from her free hand. Faith could hear the blood drip onto the wooden floor.

"You're going to need some clean bandages."

"N-no." Joanne said. "I'm... Too far gone..."

"What are you talking about?!" Faith said as she set her bag down. "Here, let me treat you."

"No!" Joanne exclaimed, barely standing up on her own. She relied on the frame of the closet to give her support. "Get out of here! Now! Before he comes back!"

Faith was taken aback. In the time she had known Joanne, she had barely allowed her emotions to get the better of her. She kept a calm composure and a collected mind when in the face of a difficult problem... But then again, during those times, Joanne was in one piece.

"Joanne." Faith said in a low voice. "Tell me, what are you talking about? Who is this person?"

Suddenly, there a loud bang that came from the hallway. Thunderous footsteps sounded down from the room beyond. Faith felt the ground shake after each step. Faith felt her heart pound like a drum and cold sweat slide down her neck. She also saw Joanne shudder after every boom of a footstep.

"He's here." Joanne whispered.

The footsteps soon came to a halt. Faith knew that whoever it was stopped in front of the door. Then, the shaking of a door handle sounded. And the door creaked slowly.

Faith held her breath.

"W-where are you?~" A raspy voice called out. Heavy footsteps followed after the voice entered the room.

Faith felt something tug on her arm fast and pull her into the closet. The world instantly became dark as the closet door only opened to a crack. From that view, Faith took a peek outside the closet from the crack.

She caught a glimpse a green and red figure moving about. He had set something by the door and continued pacing around. Judging by the sound of the footsteps, this person wore boots. And noting the gender Joanne referred to from earlier, this was a man. Fatih also heard the footsteps sounding off at irregular beats. It was as if the person was limping.

"Get out here darling! I promise I won't hurt you again!" The voice sounded again except this time, much closer than before.

Soon, the footsteps came to a very close stop.

Right in front of the closet.

"A-are you in here?"

Faith saw his face then. There was a long scar that ran along his right eye, rendering it useless. He had short cropped hair and blood splattered like paint along his face. Faith saw that his clothes were covered in thick, dark blood and bits of flesh. She could see pink bits that stuck out along his clothes. Upon closer inspection, Faith saw that the man was wearing a faded military uniform. She also saw his bent-up name tag. It read: C. Moore.

Faith could literally feel his breathing on her face. She held her breath but her heart remained a thundering torrent of pounding. Faith felt as if the man came any closer, he would surely hear the pounding of her heart.

Then, like a miracle from above, the man turned away from the closest and began to walk away. Faith let out her breath when she felt that the man was far away enough. As she sighed, her arm brushed into Joanne's.

Then a loud clattering noise rang inside closet.

Faith's nerves ran on edge. She couldn't figure out what the hell caused that sound until she remembered what Joanne held in her hand.

A knife.

Oh no...

Faith quickly looked up and saw the man swiftly turn and return back to the closet. She saw him grab the closet door.

Instinctively, Faith kicked the door open, catching the man off guard. The door had also knocked him aside. Faith bolted out of the closet and looked down her adversary.

"A new one!" He exclaimed. "I'll be sure to make you pretty!"

He was much taller than Faith had anticipated. At least a head or two taller than she was. Faith could see the outline of the impression of the door frame along the man's face. Regardless of being hit in the face, the man smiled devilishly, his good eye bloodshot. His eyes and unnerving smile struck fear into Faith. Faith could feel herself shake from his mere appearance.

Then, he took out something from his belt and pointed it at Faith.

It was a handgun.

She quickly ran to the side as the man fired several rounds at her. As she evaded the bullets, Faith felt a sharp burning pain lace at the top of her ear. Faith grabbed her ear as she looked up at the man. He still smiled as he pointed his weapon at Faith.

"Night night." He said, his eyes wide.

Suddenly, the man yelped in pain. Faith saw that Joanne had jumped from the closet and sunk her teeth into the man's hand. He dropped his weapon and continued to cry out. He swung his fist and knocked Joanne off his hand. Joanne crumpled to the floor without a sound.

Faith saw the man grip his bloody hand briefly before looking back up at her. Faith saw her chance, dashed up to the man, and kicked him in the torso.

The man grunted in pain but managed to grab her leg. Faith, alarmed, tried to maneuver her leg around, trying to set it free but it was no use.

The man tightly grabbed her leg and swung Faith across the room. Faith came to an abrupt stop after hitting her head on the wall. Stars flooded her vision and a flood of pain showered her head. The world twirled and dilated in her sight.

Faith got up as quickly as she could, her world still spinning. A distorted man ran towards her, something in his hand. It was hook shaped with a long red shaft.

It was a crowbar.

The man swung the crowbar at her. Faith leapt to the side, evading the curved side as it splintered the wooden wall. Faith had faded vision but she could clearly see the crowbar. She grabbed it.

The man tried to yank it from her but he couldn't deal out much strength with one good hand. Faith tried to pull the crowbar from him with all her strength.

All of sudden, Faith felt herself being lifted from her feet. Her head and back came into contact with the wall again. The man had used her strength against her, pinning her to the wall. And now, Faith felt the cold metal shaft of the crowbar being pressed against her neck. She tried to push the man off but it was no use. The man, despite his bad hand, had a towering stature and used his weight to push against Faith. She felt the crowbar seemingly crush her neck.

Faith couldn't breathe. She could see the corners of her eyes redden and darken. Her vision began to fade. Even with her dark vision, she could still see the man's insane smile and the echoing sound of his maniacal laughter.

Am I going to die here?...

...

Is this really how I die...?

The darkness was oppressive now.

I don't want to die

Then, there was a piercing sound that broke through her senses. Faith felt the pressure from the crowbar lessen and her vision began to return. As her vision began to clarify, Faith saw a gaping hole in the man's eye socket. Blood had begun to ooze slowly, dripping like a slow waterfall. Faith swore that the man blinked before his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.

Faith grabbed her neck, feeling the bruise that had been newly spread. She breathed deeply, feeling her neck ache with each breath.

*Click click*

Faith located the source of the sound and found Joanne still lying on the floor, gun in hand. It appeared to be emptied.

"Th-thanks..." Faith croaked as she picked herself up and walked over to Joanne. Joanne pushed herself up against the wall, her face bruised and bloodied. She tossed the gun aside.

"That was the last bullet." Faith remarked as she sat down next to Joanne.

Joanne nodded and coughed.

Faith pulled up her bag and pulled out a small white tube container. She handed them to Joanne.

"Here" Faith said, popping open the canister. PAINKILLERS were plastered along the tube's side. "You need these more than I do."

Joanne looked at the pills and sighed sadly. "Faith... What did I say earlier?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm long gone." Joanne said, looking at Faith sadly. "There's no treatment that can help me..."

Faith stood up, rubbing her face. "Okay. Enough with these beat-around-the-bush comments. Tell me now, honestly. What are you talking about?!"

Joanne's eyes glinted with sadness as she took off her jacket. Faith could see all the blood stained along Joanne's white tank-top. Joanne peeled away at the portion of tank-top towards her shoulder.

She must have bled a lot. The blood is sticking her clothes to her skin...

Her shoulder was now free from her clothes and was bare. Blood was stained everywhere.

"Look right there." Joanne said in a low voice.

"What do you mean?" Faith asked, puzzled.

"You'll see."

Faith walked towards Joanne and looked behind her shoulder. There was a wound alright. It was oval shaped and tore away a good chunk of flesh... It resembled a...

"Oh my god, Joanne."

Joanne nodded slowly. "You see now?... Anything you use on me would be a waste..."

Faith bolted back up and paced around, cold sweat beading off of her forehead. She brought her hand to her face and ran it through her hair.

"What do we do?" Faith said. "I-I've never dealt with a bite-victim before... Oh God, when did it happen?"

"Alleyway… While getting away…"

Faith rubbed her face. "No… God damn it… God- No…"

Faith winced. "I'm sorry, I-"

"It's okay." Joanne said. "You aren't to blame..."

Faith thought to herself for a moment. "I'm not to blame?"

"You aren't."

"You got bit because of me!"

Joanne looked at her, raising her eyebrow with little strength she had left. "I thought I made it perfectly clear that it wasn't your fault. Besides, you'd have done the same for me."

"But you're going to die!"

"And you're going to live Faith! That's enough for me! What does it matter if I die as long as the person I cared for lives? That's more than enough for me!"

Faith was a loss of words. Joanne was right about one thing. She was going to die and Faith was going to live. Although Joanne said it was enough for her, Faith knew it would never measure up. Faith looked over at Joanne and saw that she wasn't paying attention to her anymore. Instead, she held something in her hand and looked at it.

"What's that, Jo?"

"My last photo with him..."

"With who?"

Joanne flipped the photo over and recognized it immediately. It was Joanne's wallpaper from her phone. On it was a handsome boy smiling with her. Faith felt her heart sink.

"About him..." Faith began to say.

"I know he's dead." Joanne said.

"What?!"

"Sam told me while we were on the road. Said that I deserved to know..."

Faith looked at Joanne and saw a teardrop roll down her cheek. It tore Faith's heart to see so. And now, Faith was faced with another predicament.

"What are we going to do about…"

"About what?" Joanne said, lifting her eyes from the crumpled photo.

"I can't leave you like this…" Faith said. "You're just going to come back as one of them…"

"Then what do you suggest?" Joanne asked. She pointed at her head. "It's here or nothing."

Faith grimaced at the thought. "No I… I can't do anything that drastic…"

Faith looked over by Joanne and saw the handgun lying on the ground.

"That's empty, isn't it…"

"I used the last bullet to kill him." Joanne said pointing over at fallen corpse of the man. "You don't have the gun I gave you… Don't you…"

Faith shook her head. "Lost it outside… Damn it…"

"It's alright..." Joanne said. "It doesn't hurt do so much anymore."

"Still... I just can't leave you... No, not like this. I'll have to figure something ou-"

There was an incredibly loud noise that came from several floors below. It sounded like metal hinges being torn off wood. The sound of the splintered ran clear into the air and a barrage of footsteps were heard from downstairs. Faith could feel the house shake from the sheer amount of steps being taken in the house.

"What the hell was that?!" Faith said aloud, looking around and outside the room.

"The door downstairs must have been torn off its hinges..." Joanne said calmly. "The roamers must have broken through."

"No, no, no!." Faith said exasperated. "I made sure to block that door... I used-"

"That crowbar?" Joanne said, pointing at the metal bar that was surrounded by a pool of blood from the dead man's head.

"Shit! I forgot that he took it up..." Faith exclaimed. "Oh no..."

Faith looked around the room and tried to get a clear grasp on the situation. She and Joanne were stuck on the top floor with a huge swarm of roamers climbing up the steps of the building. There was no way down back the hallway, they'd only run into the walkers headfirst. Faith took a good look at the room. There was a lot of cluttered furniture she could use to blockade the door.

She ran over to a desk and pushed it along the floor. It was a lot heavier than it looked. She pushed as hard she could and only got it a several meters across the ground, still a ways from the door.

Faith noticed there was no lock on the door and the door itself had slightly rotted away at the metal hinges, making it very loose and very unstable. The walkers may be able to break through the door with brute force whether Faith barricaded the door or not.

"The window, Faith" Joanne said, weakly gesturing to the shut window. "It is right above the window. You'll be able to get away from here."

"Yeah, I know that but what about you?!" Faith said, circling around the desk, trying to push it once more. "I can't leave you again!"

"Yes you can. You have to!"Joanne said. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

As she moved the desk, Faith ran her foot over something. Looking at the ground, she saw a familiar sight.

It was her knife.

She quickly picked it up and sheathed it.

"I'm sorry I took that from you..." Joanne said. "I thought that maybe I had a chance if I did..."

"I'm glad you did, you're still alive aren't you?"

Joanne coughed. "You can say that..."

The snarl of walkers and the shuffling of their feet were now extremely close. They'd be in the room in less than two minutes.

Faith ran over to Joanne. "Come on, you have you get up!"

Joanne shook her head stiffly, a sad look plastered over her face. "I can't Faith. I don't feel my legs anymore..."

A sharp growl rang from the hallway. Faith looked out and saw that the walkers had reached the third floor. She ran to the door and put her weight behind it.

"What are you doing?" Joanne asked her.

"Saving our lives. I'm not leaving you again."

"Faith! Get your head out of your ass and think straight for once! I'M BIT. THAT'S FINAL. There is NOTHING you can do! I WILL die! And I WILL come back as one of them! Unless YOU want to become one of them, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Faith winced as the words bombarded her ears. The walkers had also begun their assault on the door. She felt the pounding of their fists on the wood and streaks of pain ran alongside her back and up to her neck.

"Faith. Please."

Faith heard the wood starting to break behind her. She pushed against it as hard as she could, trying to keep the slim barrier that was keeping her and Joanne alive as long as she could.

Then, Faith felt and heard something skid against the floor and come to a rest at her feet. It was blocky and had a dirty yellow color.

"Remember you gave me that, saying that it'll give me good luck and that we'll see each other again?"

Faith looked up and saw streams of tears flowing from Joanne's eyes.

"Now it's my turn to give it to you."

The door burst open but Faith managed to close it with all her strength and weight.

"Faith. Take it and run. Run as far as you can. It kept me alive for longer than I should be. Get out of here while you still have a chance."

Faith finally spoke, a lump rising in her throat. "Then what?! I can't live with your blood on my hands! I don't want to lose you!"

"I am not yours to lose, Faith. My fate is sealed. Yours isn't."

Faith managed to pick up the yellow walkie-talkie and pocketed it into her jacket. Then she shifted her attention to the window. The outside sky was filled with a sea of clouds. It looked as if it might rain.

"That window is the type that will fly open with enough force pushed against it." Joanne said, her voice dying with each word. "Run straight for it Faith. Don't look back."

From the way the wood felt, Faith knew the door wasn't going to hold for much longer.

"Run Faith! RUN!"

Faith looked at Joanne one last time and saw her wide eyes. They pleaded to her, telling her to get out of there. Faith realized now that she was left with no choice. She broke away from the door and ran straight for the window. Behind her, Faith could hear the door being unhinged and thrown off of its frame. She also heard the wood splinter into pieces. There were snarls and moans as the walkers flooded the room. Faith shielded herself as she ran towards her exit.

Then she jumped.

Like Joanne said, the window popped open with ease and Faith landed outside onto the rooftops. She could hear the walkers behind her. Picking herself up as quickly as she could, Faith ran.

And ran.

And ran.

The clouds erupted with thunder and rain had begun its downpour onto the world below. And Faith continued running. Her hand tightened around the small yellow object that resided in her pockets.

…

The amount of rain that fell from the sky that day could not equivocate to the amount of tears that fell from Faith's eyes that moment.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**(A/N): Late, rushed, blah blah blah. I know. Anyway, I'm so busy nowadays, I barely have time to publish a decent chapter… Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. And leave a review or something. It helps me. **

**Until next time,**

**~SAYONARA~**


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